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SUMMER IN THE 
GIRLS' CAMP 




N earing the summit 



SUMMER IN THE 
GIRLS' CAMP 



BY 

ANNA WORTHINGTON COALE 



ILLUSTRATED WITH 
PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1919 






Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1919, by • 
The Centuby Co. 



Published, August, 1919 



AUG \b\)ji)j 

©Ci.A530562 



TO 
MY SISTER 

WHO FIRST INTRODUCED TO MB 

THE JOYS OF SUMMER IN 

THB GIRLS' CAMP 



INTRODUCTION 

The history of the organized camp for girls 
covers a period of more than fifteen years. Be- 
fore that time educators had long felt the need 
of this form of outdoor life for growing boys, 
and boys' camps had been in existence for nearly 
a decade. But as for girls and the out-of-doors, 
the popular idea had not advanced beyond the 
summer hotel stage. 

The suggestion came originally from some 
parents who had had sons in a camp in Maine 
conducted by Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Cobb of Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, and who felt that girls 
ought to have the same freedom in their sports 
as their brothers enjoyed, and that in order to 
gain this it would be necessary to get away from 
the beaten path, to live in the open and to adopt 
some simple form of dress. The idea appealed 
to Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, who were engaged in edu- 
cational work, and especially interested in the 
problem of the summer vacation, and they started 



viii INTRODUCTION 

the first organized camp for girls at Bridgeton, 
Maine, in the summer of nineteen hundred and 
two. 

The idea became popular, and within three 
years there were several others. Within ten 
years there were nearly a hundred. Today the 
number is increasing so rapidly that it is diffi- 
cult to keep count. The educational aim of the 
original leaders of the girls' camp movement is 
being emphasized today by the National Asso- 
ciation of Directors of Girls' Camps, and its edu- 
cational value has been more and more recognized 
until it has taken a place in the educational sys- 
tem which is in the opinion of prominent edu- 
cators second only to the school. In this con- 
nection a course of lectures on Camping for 
Girls was recently given at Teachers' College, 
Columbia University, to prepare leaders for this 
new kind of educational work. 

Dating back to about the same period as the 
camp in Maine is another type of camp which 
has been developed by the Young Women's 
Christian Association, to provide the same kind 
of outdoor life for short vacation of the self- 
supporting girl. Other movements, such as the 
Camp Fire Girls, the Girl Scouts and the Wood- 



INTRODUCTION ix 

craft League have contributed much to the cause 
of untrammelled freedom for girls in the out-of- 
doors, and through cooperation of these move- 
ments with the directors of the private camps, not 
only are the standards for camp activities being 
advanced in all camps but the general public is 
coming to know more about the girls' camp. 

Observation during a period of twelve years 
of the effect of the camp life in the physical im- 
provement and character development of upwards 
of a thousand girls, and association in work and 
play with girls of nearly every walk of life leads 
to the sincere belief in the great mission of the 
girls' camp in helping to solve some of the prob- 
lems of our American life. 

We wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the 
Outlook Company in granting permission to re- 
print Chapter I, which appeared first in the 
pages of their magazine. 

A. W. C. 

New York. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Life in a Girls' Camp 3 

II Going to Camp 20 

III Fitting into the Environment . . .32 

IV Camp Activities — Sports 49 

V Camp Activities — Crafts 64 

VI Camp Activities — ^Trips 79 

VII War Times in the Summer Camps . . 98 

VIII Are You a Life Saver? 112 

IX Outside the Schedule . . . . . .127 

X The Councilor 153 

XI Inter-Camp Days 167 

XII The Short Vacation Camp . . . .184 

XIII Singing 200 

XIV What Counts v^^ith Camp Girls . . .232 
XV Honors 244 

XVI Camp Periodicals ....... 254 

Jests 283 

XVII Educational Values and the Summer 

Camp 298 



XX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Nearing the summit Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Enjoying an open fireplace in an Adirondack camp . 8 

Ten camps uniting for a patriotic celebration . . 9 

Fun at a sea-shore camp 24 

A camp in the pine woods of Michigan .... 24 

Around the fire in one living room 25 

Starting out on a hike .40 

Tent-mates and visitors 41 

A swimming party making the camp letter . . .52 

Tennis in a Michigan camp 53 

The girls can put up a game of baseball that will 

hold the side-lines in suspense 53 

The joy of the slide 60 

A war canoe fully manned 60 

Knitting as a handicraft 61 

A popular place for craft workers 61 

A sketching party in a junior camp 84 

You look out on a scene of vast wonder and beauty . 85 

Viewing Mount Washington from Mount Jefferson . 92 

Working in the war-time gardens at a girls' camp . 93 

A class in signaling 96 

The racing dive to start 97 

Breaking the wrist hold 112 

Making contacts with subjects 112 

xiii 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



The double arm carry 113 

The tired swimmf's carry 113 

Scene from "Every-Camp" 144 

A tow of canoes on the way to Field Day at a neigh- 
boring camp 144 

Getting the last directions for the trail . . . .145 
They came down the field in the final formation six- 
teen abreast 176 

At a point held by a figure in bloomer costume they 

turned 177 

Down they went in the midst of the puddles . . .177 

The Ice Cream Shack, Altamont 192 

Getting ready for inspection 192 

Fatigue squad at a Girl Scout Camp 193 

Learning to tie knots at a Girl Scout Camp . . .196 
Singing on the side lines to cheer the team . . . .197 
Camp girls like a girl who goes out to win . . . 240 

A day of field sports 241 

The riders from a Vermont camp 272 

A camp girl is not taught theories, but how to do 

things 273 



SUMMER 
IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 



SUMMER 
IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 



CHAPTER I 



LIFE IN A girls' CAMP 



TEN years ago girls' camps were rare. 
Five years ago you heard of a few of 
them in Maine and New Hampshire. 
Nowadays we hear of a hundred, and they are lo- 
cated in all parts of the country — in the Adiron- 
dacks and the White Mountains, at the seashore, 
in Arizona and other parts of the Far West. 
The girl camper may be twelve or twenty. She 
usually comes from a home of luxury and hugely 
enjoys the novelty of sleeping in tents, the un- 
hampered opportunities for learning to swim, to 
row, to paddle — in short, to live close to friendly 
Mother Nature — through eight or nine happy 
weeks of the camp season. And, best of all, she 
learns the value of girl friendships. A camp girl 



4 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

who is now in college writes: ''More important 
than experience with wind and wood is the inti- 
mate association with people which camp affords. 
I have known college girls who wasted most of 
their freshmen year in learning the simple prin- 
ciple of community life — toleration, cooperation, 
and normal friendliness — which the camp girl 
has already been taught." Another girl said 
that at home she had known only one girl well. 
Camp taught her to understand other girls. 

Every summer one whole camp has an oppor- 
tunity to vote for just one girl. It is not the 
most popular girl — though she is sure to be that; 
nor the most athletic; nor yet the best-looking. 
Not any of these. The highest honor the camp 
has to bestow is given for Camp Spirit — and it 
goes to the girl who has proved to be the most 
thoughtful, generous, and kind — in short, the 
best friend. 

The girls' camp has proved that there can be 
just as great esprit de corps among girls as among 
boys. Not only that, but among girls of varying 
ages and circumstances. When one camp is 
"out together," there is always an older young 
woman who seems to be the leader. It is hard 
to decide whether she is a camp girl or not. 



LIFE IN A GIRLS' CAMP 5 

There is a big-sister air about her, and yet an 
air of frank comradeship. She is a councilor — 
a college girl, full of life and spirit. She is the 
close friend and adviser of the younger girls. 
Then there is the honor girl, who has been chosen 
by a committee of councilors because of her 
''camp spirit" of thoughtfulness, friendliness, and 
leadership. She can swim and row, and is al- 
lowed to go in a canoe without a councilor, and 
sometimes to take other girls. There are also 
in this company the timid little mother's darling 
and the prim little city girl. Yet in spite of 
these varying types, so strong is the spirit of 
friendship that there is rarely a note of discord 
or maladjustment. 

Camp routine is much the same in all camps. 
The bugle call which awakens the girls is fol- 
lowed ten minutes later by another, which sum- 
mons all the campers to assemble for a short cal- 
isthenics drill and a run around the open court 
or a lively folk-dance. At one typical camp, ''If 
you don't go to 'cal' you can't go swimming all 
day." If you come in a bathing suit, you can 
have a dip in the lake before breakfast. 

After breakfast there is a lively scramble to 
put the tents in ship-shape order for inspection. 



8 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Then follows the reading hour, under a big 
tree, with sewing, if you like; and the afternoon 
excursions are planned. It may be a long trip 
on foot or horseback; a night in the open, a trip 
to some distant mountain, with three nights on 
the way ; a three-day gypsying trip with a wagon 
for the baggage ; or it may be merely a quiet pad- 
dle along the lake shore. 

The lovely camp evening, with its basket-ball, 
tennis, a bonfire with camp songs and stories (or 
the fireside, if it rains), or a *'sing" on the lake 
with all the campers in canoes, is brought to an 
end by the bugle again sounding in the deepening 
twilight. Taps, '' lights out," find all quiet, ex- 
cept a giggle or two, hushed by an honor girl, and 
the happy day is done. 

In a suburban town a committee of parents re- 
cently held a serious and prolonged discussion 
over the question of the recreation of the children 
of the community. 

A playground expert from a national associa- 
tion was called in to make a survey of the recrea- 
tional facilities of the town. The survey re- 
vealed that ^'one-third of the leisure life of that 
town's boys and two-fifths of the leisure life of 



LIFE IN A GIRLS' CAMP 9 

its girls are taken up in going down town, walk- 
ing and loafing." At this point an exasperated 
parent suggested that if children could have du- 
ties, tasks, and a child's measure of responsibility 
they could utilize what time they would have left 
for sport and recreation without suggestion from 
adults; and they would not be found wasting the 
precious hours of playtime in aimlessly strolling 
down town and about the streets. Perhaps this 
wise parent had known in his boyhood days the 
joy of turning work into play. 

At a certain camp in New England there was 
an accumulation of rubbish to be disposed of 
soon after arrival. The camp leader suggested 
a bonfire. The idea was enthusiastically re- 
ceived, and rubbish was brought from all quar- 
ters of the camp grounds. Many hands piled 
it ''high as the sky." When night came, there 
was a wild Indian dance and war-whoop, all 
joining hands, as the huge pile was lighted. 
That was a fine instance of making play out of 
work. 

It was some years ago when Janet came to camp. 
She came from a large city in the Middle West. 
Her ''set" at home had parties almost every night. 
Janet was popular, too, with the boys. When 



10 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

she saw the campers in their bloomer costume, 
her face fell. They seemed so young. The camp 
leader found her weeping tears of homesickness 
when the train left which took her mother back 
to her Western home. *'J^^^^ dear," she said, 
cheerily, ignoring her tears, "I want you to organ- 
ize a basket-ball team. I have been depending 
on you for our team. Will you come out now 
and look over your material?" Janet came out. 
She looked over her ^'material." Somehow, in 
the bloomer costume, with her hair in braids, she 
looked just as young as they. And they were 
such nice-looking girls, she noticed. She soon 
had a good team chosen, and during that summer 
she developed qualities, not only of leadership, 
but of thoughtfulness and genuine friendliness. 
So popular was she that her name has been 
handed down through several summers, and still 
clings to the tent which she occupied. And when 
every once in a while she returns to visit the old 
camp, she is welcomed by all the campers, old 
and new. 

In the democracy of camp life a girl finds her- 
self in an environment of simplicity and freedom 
which stimulates her to activity. In place of lan- 
guidly accepting a ready-made programme of 



LIFE IN A GIRLS' CAMP 11 

play she must provide play activities for herself 
and others. There is no distinction in dress, for 
the camp costume is alike for all. A girl is rated 
by her achievement, not by externals. More- 
over, she has a distinct advantage in being rated 
well at the start, for, as one older brother put it, 
"Your camp takes it for granted that a girl is a 
good fellow till she proves that she is n't." 

Gwendolyn was one of the few girls who failed 
to appreciate all this. She ought to have gone 
to camp sooner. For she had been around the 
world twice, had wintered in Japan, and had a 
yacht and an automobile. Yet these accessories, 
which stood her in such good stead at home, 
failed to make any impression at camp. 

Then Gwendolyn started stories about the 
other girls. The first one passed unheeded in 
the friendly atmosphere of camp democracy. 
She tried it again — unhappy Gwendolyn! The 
second time the stories were repeated. The third 
time they were doubted; but the fourth time, 
alas! they were believed. But there was a re- 
action immediately. The stories were traced 
straight to Gwendolyn, and she became so un- 
popular that she actually became so miser- 
able that she had to leave. "I had a hard rub," 



12 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

she wrote afterward, ''but I know it did me 
good." She had found that trips around the 
world, yachts, and automobiles count for naught 
when a girl fails to be thoughtful, kind and gen- 
erous. 

In camp a girl learns, like her brother, to be 
a ''good sport." One way is to take defeat cheer- 
fully and to honor your successful competitor. 
Another way to be a "good sport" in a girls' camp 
which some brave girls have learned is to refrain 
from doing things which you are not able to do. 
One girl with a weak heart learned this only 
when she had to be rescued because she tried to 
swim too far. But the spirit of restraint which 
she afterward showed was recognized by the 
campers to be just as fine as the spirit of daring 
in others. 

Unfailing good humor is a strong characteris- 
tic of the girl camper. Any mention of discom- 
fort is frowned upon, and an uncomfortable ex- 
perience, whether in camp or abroad, is always 
made romantic in a song. 

The mountain trip, which involves several 
days' travel and some degree of hardship, is a 
good test of spirits and power of endurance. 

A party from one camp started out one fine 



LIFE IN A GIRLS^ CAMP 13 

day to climb a famous mountain, whose high 
peaks they had often viewed from afar at their 
camp home. They walked many miles to the 
base, and then traversed the long side of the 
mountain before they began to climb. Lunch 
and supper were eaten from knapsacks on the 
way. It was nearly dark when they reached the 
hut half-way up the mountain where arrange- 
ments had been made to spend the night. The 
hut, they found, had accommodations for but 
thirty. Another party had preceded them, and 
there were fifty- four. ^'We '11 have to sleep like 
sardines," said one of the girls. And they did. 
By morning they had a jolly good song to take 
back to camp, as every party must, and every 
verse ended in *'Roll over!" 

Next morning they started the long climb. 
Before they had gone far it began to rain. A 
car passed them half-way up, filled with people 
comfortably seated on dry seats. 

"Only towering peaks and rocky paths can 
sturdy climbers thrill," the girls sang, "though 
others do their climbing in a car." 

Nearly drenched, but in excellent spirits, they 
reached the summit, again to find that the best 
rooms of the tip-top house were occupied by some 



14 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

gentlemen from New York. The gentlemen of- 
fered to vacate, but our girl campers stoutly re- 
fused. After being dried by a smoky fire, and 
passing a night on some extra bunks, they started 
down the mountain, singing : 

"How many miles have we got to go, got to go, got to go, 
How many miles have we got to go, 
To catch the train to ?" 

It was afterwards learned that the gentlemen 
from New York caught cold on the way up the 
mountain, but never so much as a sneeze was re- 
corded among the girl campers. 

Camp has valuable lessons for us all, the ex- 
periences of some parents being as significant as 
those of their offspring. A fond father brought 
his motherless little girl to camp. The mother's 
death was very recent, and Patty had never been 
away from home before. Papa stayed at the inn 
across the lake as long as business in the city 
would permit. The first night he looked out 
across the lake and saw the camp lights twinkling 
on the shore, he wondered about Patty. How 
would she get along without her maid to undress 
her? "But it will be a good experience for her," 
said he, shaking his head sadly. In the middle 



LIFE IN A GIRLS' CAMP 15 

of the night a storm arose — wind, rain, thunder, 
and lightning. The waves beat against the 
rocks. Papa arose and paced the floor. "My 
poor little girl over there among the rocks and 
caves!" he groaned. "She will be frightened to 
death!" He wrung his hands. He continued 
to pace the floor until dawn. At the earliest pos- 
sible moment he tried to reach the camp by tele- 
phone, only to find that no one from the outside 
could break into that camp, by telephone or oth- 
erwise, for another hour. He waited. He 
called again. Patty's voice came back, fresh 
and clear. "Yes, papa." "My darling," said 
papa, "were you frightened?" "At what, 
papa?" "The dreadful storm — thunder and 
lightning." There was a pause. He waited 
anxiously. After a minute came the reply. 
Patty's voice sounded puzzled. "I didn't hear 
it, papa." 

There are other parents who have learned the 
value of looking carefully into the management 
of the camp to which they wish to send their 
young daughter. For, although a camp may 
have an ideal location and beautiful scenery and 
model equipment, if it has not also wise leader- 
ship and the highest ideals of character, it will 



16 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

fail in its greatest obligation — the development 
of the highest type of womanhood. 

The result of camp training should be, and 
usually is, a sound mind in a sound body. At the 
same time, the camps reveal, by contrast, a de- 
plorable lack in the present system of education 
for women. It is the failure to put the proper 
emphasis on physical development. The school 
and college — and the home as well — are not 
sending forth their daughters with a reserve of 
strength and steady nerve as a preparation for 
living. And there are other evidences of a need 
for revision of the educational system. Just as 
in industry women have been working under con- 
ditions designed for men, so it would seem, in the 
school and college, a man's program is being 
imposed upon the girl student. Courses and 
methods which ignore the physical have been 
handed down from the past without proper adap- 
tation to the needs of girls. 

Many of these courses are not related to the 
needs of the girl's after life. For instance, the 
study of dead languages and higher mathematics 
may be good mental exercise, but may be wholly 
unrelated to the life of the girl who is preparing 
to make a home. 



LIFE IN A GIRLS' CAMP 17 

And much of the girl student's work is still 
done by assimilation and imitation, rather than 
by methods which develop the imaginative, cre- 
ative, and reasoning faculties. 

We hear in these days of the "nervous strain 
of college life" — and sometimes we hear the same 
thing from school-girls. The reason for this, in 
the case of too many girls, is a lack of discrim- 
ination in not knowing how properly to balance 
their time with work, rest, and play. Girls need 
to be taught how to relax. A camp girl said she 
found at college tired, overworked girls who did 
not know when they needed rest — not realizing 
that the mind and body, to keep healthy, must 
have complete quiet at times. "Some girls 
here," she says, "do not know the treasures in a 
long walk over hill and dale, along the brook- 
side, through the woods, when all thoughts of 
lessons are left behind." 

The camp girl is taught how to divide her time. 
Play has a large place in her program, and 
it furnishes valuable educational training. 
Through play she learns some of the first prin- 
ciples of the fine art of living — adaptability, re- 
liability, initiative, and good fellowship. 

She also realizes the great value of rest — some- 



18 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

times solitude — and its relation to work and play. 
Off in a pine wood, beside a mountain stream, in 
a canoe, along shore, alone with nature or a com- 
panionable book, a camp girl can be happy for 
hours. ^'Invite your soul," is a familiar expres- 
sion in a girls' camp. 

And then the camp girl works! She goes in 
for things, and works for the sake of working. 
It may be organizing sports, or some unfinished 
craft work, or a part of the domestic work of the 
camp assigned to her. Sometimes she puts in an 
hour or two on lessons which have to be made up 
for school in the fall. With superb health, ex- 
uberance of spirits, and pleasant companionship, 
she gets joy out of working. And a definite part 
of each camp day is sacredly devoted to work. 

Because she has learned the importance of ac- 
complishing what she sets out to do and the ad- 
vantage of team-work, the camp girl is depended 
on in college for the executive work in non-aca- 
demic activities. It is said in one college that 
when a camp girl is made chairman of a commit- 
tee that committee's work will be done well. 

Camp life gives a girl also a good store of 
knowledge as a preparation for her academic 
work. She knows not only how to bandage a 



LIFE IN A GIRLS' CAMP 19 

cut and right an overturned canoe, but also how 
to recognize the stars and appreciate the poetry 
of scenery. Contact with the real world of na- 
ture develops an interest in scientific explanations 
and theories. 

Good health and a balanced mind bring many 
desirable qualities in their train — physical poise, 
toleration, friendliness, power of achievement, 
and that indefinable charm which is the glory of 
every woman with glowing health. 



CHAPTER II 

GOING TO CAMP 

HAD the authorities at the Grand Cen- 
tral Depot but realized as they do now 
the importance of the summer camps, 
all the mix-up might have been avoided. As it 
was, crowds of boys and girls had been start- 
ing off from the big New York terminal for their 
camps at the seashore and in the mountains at the 
beginning of each summer without attracting very 
much attention. And that was why Betty Brown 
came very near being left behind when Camp B. 
boarded the White Mountain Express one hot 
morning in June. 

Camp B. had arranged to meet the chaperon 
at the information desk. But when Betty and 
her grandmother arrived at the Grand Central, 
all breathless and perspiring and just a little late, 
they found the station a swarming mass of girls 
and boys, mothers and fathers, grandmothers, 

20 



GOING TO CAMP 21 

uncles, cousins, and aunts; and when, by dint of 
much pushing, Betty finally succeeded in jostling 
her way through the mob to the information desk, 
it was only to find herself hopelessly separated 
from her grandmother and locked tight in a jam 
of girls, chaperons, and suitcases, while the clock 
hands were pointing dangerously near to train- 
time. 

It was a desperate moment; for had the party 
gone without her, Betty would have had to give 
up going to camp for the summer. Something 
had to happen! And it did. She never knew 
just how, but all of a sudden something gave way, 
the jam loosened, and the next moment she found 
herself on the edge of the crowd, with a signifi- 
cant bit of blue ribbon, the badge of Camp B., 
fluttering right under her nose. It was attached 
to Miss Mills, the head councilor, making a last 
frantic search for the councilor with the block 
ticket, who had disappeared in the crowd to find 
Betty. They seized her just in time, and every- 
thing turned out all right, for her grandmother 
had found her way to the gates and was waiting 
there with the Camp B. girls. In a moment, 
with a single punch of the block ticket, everyone 
was pushed through the gates, and the next thing 



22 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

they knew they were moving swiftly out into the 
open. 

So after all the bustle and confusion they were 
off, and Camp B. settled down for a whole day 
on the White Mountain Express, which went roll- 
ing on and on up into the hills and fertile fields 
of old New England. There may have been pas- 
sengers on that train who found the trip tedious, 
but there was one car, filled with a crowd of 
lively school girls that managed to have a good 
time all the way, singing camp songs, visiting and 
making new acquaintances, looking over the new- 
est magazines, and keeping a lookout all the way 
along for the friends who were to get on at the 
important stopping places. The whole car was 
filled with camp girls, except for two or three el- 
derly ladies on the back seats, who smiled and 
looked pleased at the gay company. And here 
and there, surrounded by a group of admirers, 
was an older girl, who was known as a councilor. 

It was a nice surprise for Betty to find that 
three other camps were making the trip on the 
same train, and that they occupied the cars just 
behind. Exchanging visits and singing to them 
made the afternoon pass very quickly. Until af- 
ter four o'clock the train slowed up at the junc- 



GOING TO CAMP 23 

tion, the one-time waiting place where a great 
many people got on and off, and then — bringing 
the end of the journey nearer — on again, to wind 
its way around the familiar bends of the beauti- 
ful Connecticut River. Things began to grow 
exciting now, and the campers in the rear car 
commenced to pick up their things. There was 
a rush for the windows as they went swaying by 
familiar landmarks, familiar to them all as the 
scenes of many a canoe trip. Now the girls in 
the rear car were standing, crowding the aisles 
with themselves and their suitcases. Still the 
train sped on, now following the stream around 
the curve, now leaving it for a little while for a 
straighter course. Till at last, rounding another 
bend, the spires of a village appeared, then a lit- 
tle station, and the train slowed up to discharge 
its first crew. Down over the station platform 
they swarmed, girls, handbags, tennis rackets, 
ukeleles, in wild confusion. Some landed in the 
frantic embraces of friends, others went scram- 
bling, shouting and running to fill the waiting au- 
tomobiles that were already headed for a certain 
camp back among the hills. 

The next station claimed another crew who 
made an equally noisy and hasty exit, and so on, 



24 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

until the last one off leaving the river at sunset 
sped away in a dozen automobiles toward distant 
blue mountain peaks, and there were left only the 
elderly ladies, a stout gentleman, and a few other 
city passengers to go on to the junction to the 
north. 

But to go back to the rest of the crowd at the 
Grand Central Depot. Within another hour they 
were all scattered, and speeding out in a dozen 
different trains toward the hills and lakes or the 
coast of New England — except, perhaps a few 
who were bound for the camps in the Adiron- 
dacks — they too were realizing their dreams about 
going to camp. For they had been dreaming 
about it — these girls and boys too — just released 
from school, ever since the first warm breezes of 
spring had been wafted in through the school 
room windows, and the longing for outdoors 
growing stronger made books and lessons and 
final examinations seem duller than ever. And 
while the picture in the mind of one might be a 
row of tents in a sunny field, in another a group 
of bungalows nestled among the trees on a rocky 
hillside, they both made the same call. You re- 
member the day-dream of Penrod when he found 
himself flying lightly over the heads of all his 



If- 1 

Mi ni- l^MKKKKM " 



^4 II 




Fun at a sea-shore camp 








A camp in the pine woods of Michigan 



GOING TO CAMP 25 

troubles, while the class below was laboring 
through a stupid recitation? In much the same 
way, the call of camp, wafted in on the first warm 
breeze affects the imagination; and the camper, 
with her eyes fixed on a dull page finds herself 
making a splashing dive from Caesar's bridge, or 
climbing to the top of an acute angle in the geom- 
etry. 

Now there are different kinds of camps. 
There are those to which a girl can go for only 
two weeks at any time during the summer, sleep in 
the open, and enjoy the outdoor sports and camp 
fires, and which will be described later on. But 
Betty Brown's camp is the kind set forth so at- 
tractively in the advertising pages of the maga- 
zines, where the activities are arranged in regular 
progression through a specified term beginning at 
the end of June or the first of July, and extend- 
ing through nine weeks till the first of Septem- 
ber, and which are clustered so thickly through 
the mountains and lake regions of Maine, New 
Hampshire, and Vermont, although there are 
some also to be found in Michigan, Wisconsin, 
and other states in the West, and a few in the 
mountains of the South. 

One nice thing about the opening of camp is 



26 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

having everybody arrive at once. You can pic- 
ture the excitement in Camp B. when they all 
get there together — girls and councillors from all 
parts pouring in, load after load, from the differ- 
ent trains. You can hear them singing and 
cheering as they come down the road and around 
the bend, and as they draw up in front of the big 
porch, and roll out of the cars on to the familiar 
stamping ground, there is a wild reunion of old 
friends interspersed with "Wonderful to be 
back," and "Why, there 's Dot," and "Oh, you 
old peach," and "Thought I should NEVER get 
here." Even the smallest is keyed up to the top 
notch of excitement, and anticipation. Small 
wonder no one lives up to the family expectations 
by getting homesick. 

All this is very thrilling to Betty Brown, the 
newcomer, who stands rooted to the spot, still 
holding on to her bag and tennis racket. An- 
other moment, and these are gaily snatched from 
her grasp, and she finds herself swept on with the 
others on the way to her tent, in tow of a slim 
figure in bloomers, who introduces herself in 
friendly fashion as an old girl. They follow a 
bumpy path through the trees, the lithe figure in 
bloomers, camp shod, bounding on lightly ahead, 



GOING TO CAMP 27 

while the others with their city heels, pick their 
way gingerly over the stones. All of them are 
greatly excited over the question of tent mates, 
Dot and Peggy hugging each other at the thought 
of being together, while four older girls are 
thrilled to find that they are to be put on their 
honor in a tent by themselves. 

"I wonder who my tent mates are," thought 
Betty. 

They come upon a group of white tents, nestled 
in among the trees, on the lake shore, with a 
glimpse of a bungalow beyond. Here they leave 
Betty at Number Five, and her guide takes her 
up the steps of the platform of a wide tent, 
overlooking the lake, where somebody is busy un- 
packing. The "somebody" turns and smiles at 
the newcomer, and Betty finds to her great amaze- 
ment that this remarkably good-looking young 
and friendly person is a councilor! It is really 
humorous, considering that all along she had pic- 
tured her as a rather severe, middle-aged person, 
like her Sunday School teacher. 

Inside the tent it was very snug and homelike. 
Four cots occupied the corners, and still there 
was plenty of room down the center for the 
steamer trunks. A rather high set of shelves oc- 



28 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

cupied one end, a wash stand with an agate bowl 
and pitcher, surmounted by a small mirror, the 
other. A row of shelves and some toilet articles 
arranged on the shelves at the end showed that her 
tent mates had been there already, as did also a 
sweater and a bath robe tucked away on the 
swinging shelf overhead, and although perfect 
strangers she began to have a warm feeling for 
them already as she found it was they who had 
so kindly made up her bed with her own blan- 
kets. She beamed when she found that one of 
them was Sue, the honor girl who had brought 
her to her tent. 

She had only a brief moment to take it all in 
before there was a sudden blast from the bugle — 
just as she was in the act of trying out the wash 
basin, and a wild shout of "Supper!" from the 
tents near by, that sent everybody running up the 
path to the dining-room. It was only with the 
help of the friendly councilor that Betty was able 
to join the hurrying procession. 

The dining hall, a big room with a low ceiling, 
opening from the front porch, was filling up rap- 
idly as they came in. There were rows of tables 
up and down the room, and places for every one 



GOING TO CAMP 29 

of the mob of hungry girls that came trooping in 
from every doorway. Some of the newly arrived 
had found time in that brief interval to slip into 
their camp costumes — clever rascals! — and they 
looked remarkably easy and comfortable in their 
clean white middies. At Betty's table were eight 
girls all of whom seemed very nice. The ab- 
sence of a tablecloth and the paper napkins 
seemed quite camp-like, but the hot biscuits, jam, 
and creamy milk were not exactly what she had 
pictured as camp fare. What about the beans 
and hard tack that Uncle Dick was always refer- 
ring to? The food was brought on by efficient 
looking camp girls and served by the councilor. 
All over the room there was a medley of excited 
voices, and rows of girls in every direction. 
Betty was kept busy trying to take it all in. 

On the panels of the walls were the names of 
all the campers of other years, with a special 
mark for those who had won honors. By and 
by her mind wandered back to the folks at home. 
They would be just about to sit down to dinner 
now. . . . Her eyes were a little blurry and she 
gave a start when she found someone was talking 
to her. 



30 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

But a little later when they had all left the ta- 
bles and gathered in the big living room around 
a blazing fire, things looked quite cheerful. The 
girls in camp costume sat on the floor around the 
fire, making an inviting picture. Looking them 
all over in the light of the fire, Betty decided that 
they were girls that were well worth knowing, and 
the prospects for a happy summer seemed very 
bright indeed. In the center, the camp leader 
was giving them a few words of welcome, and 
when they were all introduced to each other, Betty 
met another tent mate, who, she was overjoyed to 
find, knew her cousins in Detroit. 

Strains from the piano started some camp 
songs that seemed to bring them all together with 
a close, warm and chummy feeling. The old 
girls were very entertaining, telling about the in- 
teresting places near camp, hikes to the village, 
canoe trips, and mountain climbs, and their glow- 
ing accounts of all these good times made the 
new girls feel how nice it would be to be an old 
girl. After one more song the camp leader re- 
minded them of the lateness of the hour, and 
bade them good-night and happy dreams. Out- 
side they waited a moment for lanterns, then scat- 
tered to their tents, a whole flock of them picking 



GOING TO CAMP 31 

their way down the stone path to the lakeside. 
On her snug little cot in her tent out under the 
stars, Betty, too tired to think, dozed off to the 
lapping of the waters and the thrill of dreams 
come true. 



CHAPTER III 

FITTING INTO THE ENVIRONMENT 

'T CAN'T get 'em up! I can't get 'em up! 
I I can't get 'em up in the morning ! " rang out 
JL the camp bugle, after real effort on the part 
of a sleepy bugler to shake herself awake. On 
the instant all over the lakeside, alert figures in 
pajamas bounced out of bed, and began pulling 
down the tent flaps. 

In her cot in Tent Five, Betty Brown was star- 
tled from her second nap — having been awak- 
ened before by the early morning sun in her face 
— and sat up, half dazed, and looked aiound. 

One of her tent mates was still in bed. "Good 
morning!" shouted Tent Six, which was an- 
swered by another tent way down the row. Soon 
there were lively sounds from the tents all around, 
and campers were calling back and forth from 
the lakeside to the knoll to know whether they 
were to have ''dip" or calisthenics. ''Only ten 
minutes to get dressed!" warned the councilor, 

32 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 33 

and two of her charges jumped out of bed. A 
moment later, scantily clad figures went hurrying 
by on the way to ''cal," and Betty and her new 
friend after some frantic diving into trunks and 
handbags, finally joined them on the bungalow 
floor just in time to hear the order ''Class in 
place!" and jump into line. 

After a brief setting-up drill and a cold plunge 
for a few of the fittest, the campers all hurried 
back to the tents to finish dressing for breakfast, 
and before all four had had turns at one mirror, 
the cheerful notes of the mess call sounded 
through the trees, announcing breakfast, and up 
the path once more came the whole procession all 
in camp costume, the last of the stragglers clutch- 
ing frantically at undone middy ties. 

The breakfast room was filled with a cheerful 
chatter, everybody being very much alive and 
glad to get back. Betty joined very little in the 
conversation, for she was thinking of home, and 
the cheerfulness around her only seemed to bring 
a lump to her throat. She tried to conceal it, and 
succeeded so far as to manage to smile when the 
girl next to her asked her how she liked camp. 

After breakfast, all the tables waited, with 
camp courtesy, till the last one had finished, and 



34 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

then everyone hurried back to put her tent in or- 
der. Getting ready for tent inspection was Bet- 
ty's first introduction to real camp life, and it oc- 
cupied a half-hour that was all too short, even 
though each one took her share. Everything, it 
seemed, must show the strictest military order and 
neatness. The floor must be swept; pitcher 
filled; the cots made up tightly and uniformly in 
hospital fashion with corners just so; and all be- 
longings in their proper places with not so much 
as a string out of line; toilet articles arranged 
neatly on the shelves, towels folded, shoes in a 
straight row, or in the bungalows tucked up in 
the rafters, bathing suits hung neatly outside, and 
all sweaters, bathrobes and other bulky articles 
rolled up and tucked away on the swinging shelf 
overhead. Time was when everything was hid- 
den from view in that most convenient of all re- 
ceptacles, the steamer trunk, but nowadays, even 
the trunk is not spared when the inspecting coun- 
cilor sees fit to peep inside, or does the door yard 
or the space underneath escape her eagle eye. 
Over and beyond all this, some camps give recog- 
nition for any little feminine touches or sugges- 
tion of beauty, such as flowers, or convenience in 
arrangement, in determining the mark that is 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 35 

posted each day — or in some camps, read aloud 
each week. While a little carelessness or a lazy 
tent mate may be the occasion for a *'B — " and a 
significant little note from the inspector, ^'Bed 
poorly made," or ^'Shelves not neat," left on the 
shelf and found later, which has a dampening 
effect on one's hopes for final honors. 

Promptly at nine o'clock, the horn blew for as- 
sembly and brought the whole camp together in 
the big recreation hall in the bungalow. They 
filled up the room quickly, the leader announced 
the hymn, and the piano gave an opening chord. 
On the first notes, a few late comers straggled in, 
and all eyes were turned in their direction. 
Betty sat with the girls from her tent near a wide 
doorway which looked out through a clump of 
white birches upon the blue waters of the lake. 
She was greatly interested in watching the rows 
of girls, some of whom she knew already. The 
room was completely filled with girls in camp 
costume, and it seemed that they all looked alike. 
She could not even pick out the councilors, for 
they all looked about the same age. The others 
joined heartily in the singing, but the strains of 
the hymn sent her thoughts toward home, and 
during the Scripture and prayer she was lost to 



36 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

everything except the trees outside and the lake. 
She was thinking about a letter she meant to 
write to her mother, and was trying to decide 
something. 

The voice of the leader brought her back to 
something pleasant, and she started up to listen 
to the announcements. The leader was explain- 
ing the camp schedule which offered all sorts of 
interesting things all through the day. They 
were the things she came to camp for — swimming 
and crafts and riding — and she mentioned any 
number of things that would be pleasant to look 
forward to for the days to come. 

When she was through, the song leader struck 
up a lively serenade, which they all sang in in- 
creasing volume to each councilor and new girl 
in turn, and when they came to Betty's name, and 
sang "Ain't she neat, ha-ha, sweet ha-ha, hand- 
some and fair," she blushed and looked pleased. 
Then almost before the last one was finished they 
burst forth with "Oh, here 's to every camper girl 
that wears the brown and white." As they went 
on with "She may be sad and lonely, reduced to 
skin and bone, but we '11 feed her up and fatten 
her, for isn't she our own?" she grinned and 
was very much amused. Next they brought on 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 37 

an extra lively one with many verses telling about 
a gypsy trip, and ending with a rousing war- 
whoop. Betty grew more and more excited, and 
catching the thrill joined heartily in the final war- 
whoop. They kept on singing until it was past 
time for dismissal, and after a winding march 
in and out and around the room, with hands on 
each other's shoulders, they went out to the tune 
of a lively marching song, and scattered hur- 
riedly to the various handcrafts, some to basketry, 
some to pottery, others to needlecraft. Betty 
selected jewelry work — she had always wanted to 
"take'' jewelry — and found it so interesting that 
she was not ready to leave when the bugle blew 
for swimming. Nevertheless, she started with 
the others at the first blast, and hurried into her 
bathing suit. 

Swimming hour was great fun, but that will 
be described in another chapter. Suffice it to say 
that the swimming master watched Betty's strokes, 
and gave her some words of approval that sent 
a glow to her face. As she picked her way back 
to her tent, like a number of others, she made the 
resolve to take the canoe test at the very first op- 
portunity. 

On the whole it was a wonderful morning, full 



38 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

of many interesting experiences. She had met a 
number of girls at swimming and crafts and felt 
much better acquainted. She had found so 
much to do that was novel and exciting that she 
had had no time to think about herself. When 
at dinner time the girls filed into the dining-room, 
she found they did not look so much alike after 
all, but were quite individual. She was 
able to pick out quite a number of friends, and 
she was surprised to find how quickly she had be- 
gun to feel at home with them. So when Table 
Three started a serenade to the swimming master 
she joined in with all her might and felt as 
though she belonged. 

That afternoon curled up on her cot in rest 
hour, she started a long deferred letter to her 
mother. All the tents on the lakeside were quiet, 
and there was no sound except the lapping of the 
waves. Before she had finished one page . . . 
It was half an hour later. 'Terkie," the coun- 
cilor, stood laughing while she rubbed her eyes. 
*'Bugle 's blown," she said, ''don't you want to 
come for a hike?" 

That evening after supper while waiting for 
some new friends to go out in a rowboat, she fin- 
ished that letter to her mother. It was not quite 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 39 

as she had once planned it, for it said nothing 
about being homesick. In fact, it said very little 
about herself, but it described a romantic walk 
over lovely country roads, and glorious impres- 
sions of hills and fields and blue sky, viewed 
from a hill top. The greater part, if the truth 
be known, was filled with glowing accounts of a 
fascinating young person named Perkins, and 
frequent mention of a '^peachy" honor girl named 
Sue, and it wound up with "You 'd LOVE camp. 
Your loving Betty." 

The first few days the newcomer is kept busy 
getting her bearings in her new environment, and 
learning how to be a camper. This involves 
some things that are difficult. Always being on 
time for appointments is one. When the bugle 
calls for assembly just as you are struggling with 
an unruly tent flap, or for dinner when your hair 
is still wet, it is not easy to act on the instant. 
Yet this is a test of the good camper, and the girl 
who goes trailing in after the hymn has begun, or 
after the diners have been seated, is not making 
an enviable record. Her experiences with camp 
discipline are somewhat like those of the rookie. 
Like the rookie also she learns to meet certain 
camp requirements with regard to order and per- 



40 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

sonal neatness. On this she is ''jacked up" at 
once. One day she leaves her sweater on a bench 
under the trees. Returning half an hour later 
she is puzzled to find it is gone, until a girl 
near by calls out, "Say, Betty, was that your 
sweater? It 's in the pound." Every stray thing, 
she finds, is spirited away to the pound, and can- 
not be gotten out until the next auction, and then 
only by paying a fine. Which is not merely in- 
convenient but embarrassing. A camper who 
usually has her things in the pound does not rank 
very high in the estimation of her fellow camp- 
ers. In the same way when she sends an un- 
marked middy to the laundry, she finds after a 
troubled investigation that it is also in the 
pound for unclaimed articles. All this is a new 
experience for the girl who is used to having 
things picked up for her. As to personal neat- 
ness, she has a feeling of chagrin to find one day 
on her tent shelf, a little note from the inspector, 
saying ''B plus. Hair in the brushes." It brings 
a little flush to her face to think that but for her, 
the tent might have been marked "A." 

All this matters much to a camper, because the 
responsibility rests with her to make good. The 
camp offers only rewards, no punishments, and al- 




Starting out on a hike 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 41 

though it may be called discipline, it is of the 
kind that is known as self-discipline. The value 
of all this she realizes even more fully if she goes 
to college. 

It requires some adjustment too, to the city girl 
to become accustomed to living out in the open, 
remote from trolley cars and department stores, 
and to make the transition from the noise of ele- 
vated trains, and the whirr of a great city to a 
stillness broken only by the flutter and twittering 
of birds, the scurrying of chipmunks, or the bark- 
ing of a faraway dog. It takes time too to get 
rid of her fears — her fears of strange noises, of 
wild life, and imaginary dangers, and her 
squeamishness about bugs and lizards and cater- 
pillars. 

Another element in making good is to go in for 
things and work with all your might and main, 
to achieve something; to count for something; to 
be a good sport ; to take your part in the camp ac- 
tivities, and your share in the things to be done. 
For a slacker is no more popular with camp girls 
than with rookies. 

Adapting one's self to new ways and customs 
may be a little bothersome at first, but behind all 
the effort is a wonderful motive that is known in 



42 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

all camps as camp spirit. This Camp Spirit is 
a magical something that is recognized at once 
by the new girl in the genial, friendly atmos- 
phere of camp, and more particularly in the spirit 
of the girls. One girl says, "What I think is the 
finest of anything in camp is the spirit of the 
girls. For instance, when the new girls come 
they are taken into everything and made a part 
of the camp immediately." This girl came to 
know later that this friendliness is a part of camp 
spirit, which every true camper tries to cultivate. 
It is the spirit that makes everybody look out for 
others; that prompts one to put aside her own 
wishes in the interest of the whole community. 
She may not feel like staying in bed for an hour 
after she is awake but she would not think of 
getting up and disturbing other people. That 
would be poor camp spirit. The same way with 
neglecting your share of the tent duties or being 
late to meals. "It is not good camp spirit," is 
enough for a true camp girl. One of the finest 
things about it is the spirit of loyalty to the camp. 
Watch Betty Brown after two weeks in camp, 
cheering herself hoarse at the first basketball 
game, or when the camp is out together, catch the 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 43 

spirit of those snappy camp songs that ring forth 
the praises of old Camp B. 

Another thing about it that is a surprise to the 
serious girl is the way the campers make light 
of difficulties, and at first she scarcely knows 
what to make of it. The very first week the girls 
in her tent agree one afternoon to pull their cots 
out of doors that night and sleep under the stars. 
But when bed-time comes there are no stars, and 
the councilor, foreseeing rain, makes a protest. 
Finally she gives in and lets them have their way. 

The new girl is afraid to venture. Waking 
up next morning before the bugle and looking 
down from her tent upon an open space below, 
she sees a row of cots covered with rubber blan- 
kets and fastened at the head of each one an open 
umbrella, while a gentle rain patters down on the 
sleepers. 

They joke about everything — the mud, the 
rain, the bugs, and all sorts of vexatious things 
which have always fretted her. Unlike other 
girls she has known they like to joke about them- 
selves, and a favorite subject is getting fat. 
They are such good sports. They never complain 
about anything. On the contrary, if the rain 



44 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

keeps up for days at a time, they write a droll 
song about it. They have songs about all sorts of 
troublesome things, even mosquitoes; and droll 
names for everything just as college boys do. 
For example, an old riding horse in one camp 
which bore from the days of its long lost youth on 
the western prairie, the markings ''E. W." was 
dubbed ''Ever Weary," and one day at table 
someone started a birthday song to him. She 
also finds them remarkably good-natured and 
easy-going about borrowing and lending. It is 
not that way at home. 

The new girl admires this spirit tremendously 
and to make good with these girls is her chief aim 
in life. But this is not always the easiest thing 
in the world, learning how to get on with other 
people, to rub elbows, so to speak, with fifty or 
a hundred young people of your own age and to 
make good. Some girls need to learn how to 
mix, and they have to find themselves first before 
they can make a place for themselves in the com- 
munity. One of these was Rosamund, a rather 
self-satisfied girl who had everything she wanted 
at home, and she changed her tent mates three 
times before she found out that the trouble was 
with herself. Another girl who had once chosen 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 45 

her tent mates with great care wrote to the camp 
leader that she wanted to "take a chance on her 
tent mates. '^ This girl had learned by her camp 
experience that any girl at camp makes a good 
comrade, and that by narrowing her circle to a 
few chosen friends she would be missing a val- 
uable part of the camp experience. 

A great many stories might be told of the ex- 
periences of different types of girls in fitting into 
the camp environment. Of the shy, sensitive 
girl who only needs to be brought out, and who 
responds at once to the friendliness of camp; of 
the over-confident girl who has a great many jolts 
before she finally finds herself, and wins the 
friendship of others ; of the self-centered girl and 
the spoiled darling; and the girl who is just nat- 
urally lovable and is sure to find a warm place in 
the hearts of everybody. One of those who had 
a hard time at first and won out was a homesick 
girl who decided to "stick it," as the English say. 
She was a timid child and had never been away 
from home before. She was really having a des- 
perate time. She had wept for three days and 
finally sent a telegram to her mother. And she 
told her councilor that she was going home. 

"Oh, no," said Miss B. "I would n't do that. 



46 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

You may be sorry. Give camp a fair trial — say 
two weeks." 

"But Ruth went home," sobbed Kathleen. 

*'Yes, but do you know what happened?" said 
Miss B. 

Now Ruth was a girl who at the first touch of 
homesickness had acted like a baby and gone 
home. Once there she had immediately wanted 
to come back, but could not get up her courage 
to face the girls. Kathleen raised her head from 
the pillow. This was something to think about. 
She sat quite still for several moments. Finally 
she straightened up, and brushing away her tears 
said, "I '11 try to stay for a month. Then the 
girls won't think I 'm a baby, will they?" 

''No, indeed," said Miss B. 

So Kathleen "stuck" it, though it took real 
grit and a mighty effort. The hardest part was 
when she got the answer to her telegram telling 
her she might come home. But she had fine 
courage and won her battle, and when the month 
was up this camper was so in love with camp, 
and so well liked by the girls that nothing could 
induce her to go home until the end of the season. 

The diary of many a camp girl tells about the 
wonderful outdoor life at camp — of the trees, the 



FITTING INTO ENVIRONMENT 47 

birds, the color in the sky and lights and shad- 
ows on the mountains, and shows the intimate 
acquaintance of a camper with all outdoor things. 
A college girl writes, 'T am lying under a butter- 
nut tree, watching fluffy white clouds floating 
over a clear blue sky." Another one says, *T can 
lie in my cot, and see in the lake a reflection of 
a fire on a mountain twelve miles away." An- 
other thirteen-year old says, 'Tt seems strange af- 
ter being up four floors in the midst of a rush- 
ing city to be able to reach a fern as you lie in 
bed." And a girl from the South writing from 
New Hampshire tells of the wonderful daisy 
fields "like those you read about." It would 
take too long to tell the whole story of the new 
girl in relation to the outdoors — of her impres- 
sions from hikes through the country, of sunny 
slopes and gleaming meadows, and of bright col- 
ored flowers, to say nothing of the friendly far- 
mer folk who are always ready to give aid to 
young people out for a good time, and over whose 
kitchen stove she has cooked many a breakfast, 
and in whose pasture fields she has spread out 
her blankets for many a night in the open. This 
intimate acquaintance with simple life and whole- 
some people for nine long weeks changes one's 



48 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

outlook, so that it is no wonder that at the end of 
the summer it is a confused and frightened band 
that lands into the turmoil at the Grand Central, 
and follows the green line in the subway. It ex- 
plains the first homesick days at home, when 
houses seem stuffy and city clothes intolerable, 
and why it takes a camper some time to find her- 
self all over again in the strange artificial sur- 
roundings. 



CHAPTER IV 

CAMP ACTIVITIES SPORTS 

EVERY girl goes in for sports at camp. 
And many of those most enthusiastic 
over swimming, basket-ball, or tennis, 
are the girls who never do any of these things at 
home. The reason is that sports at camp are 
more fun. The camp girls put something into 
their games that even their brothers miss. A 
good illustration of this is the story of a trip, com- 
ing from a camp in Vermont: 

It was midsummer, and a party of eight had set 
out from camp on a gypsying trip through the 
Green Mountains. With a wagon along for the 
blankets and supplies, they had traveled many 
miles from home, slept four nights in their pon- 
chos, and climbed a mountain. It was on the 
last day, while traveling over hot and dusty roads 
on an average of twenty miles a day, that they 
began to look around for some fun. They soon 
found that the combination of a small potato, a 

49 



50 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 

walking-stick, and a country road produced a 
beautiful game of golf ; tiiat the lid of a saucepan 
and a lemon resulted in a dubious game of ten- 
nis; and that any water, from four inches in 
depth to four feet, gave opportunity for a per- 
fectly good swim. They might leave their ath- 
letics behind them in camp, the councilor de- 
clared, but never their sports. 

You see, the camp girls know how to play. 
They would rather go out for a good time in their 
games than to win. They may work for the 
camp letter in swimming, tennis, riding, or walk- 
ing, but when they play basket-ball, baseball, 
and other athletic games that boys take so se- 
riously, they play for the sake of the game and 
the fun there is in it. 

Take basket-ball, for example — an impromptu 
game, when two tables challenge each other at 
supper-time, call themselves the Reds and the 
Blues, and come out a few minutes later in 
fantastic garb and line up against each other for 
a game. The cut of the costumes, the wild plays, 
the songs made up for the occasion, and the spirit 
of the crowd cheering them on, furnish as much 
real sport as any competitive game with the reg- 
ular, qualified teams. And when it comes to com- 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 51 

petitive games with another camp, or two chosen 
teams from the same camp, the fun is by no 
means dependent on whether they win or lose. 

An occasional afternoon of field sports is some- 
thing like an impromptu game of basket-ball. 
The girls enter the races and the throwing and 
jumping contests for the fun of doing it, under 
the impulse of the moment. Many a timid girl 
who has never had any experience in this kind of 
play is persuaded to go in and try for the fun 
of the thing. 

In many of the large camps at the beginning 
of the season the entire body of campers is di- 
vided into two sides, as the Blues and the Whites, 
or the Blacks and the Reds. This stimulates 
competition, not for the individual, but for the 
camp. Each team has its captain and the sides 
are evenly matched. On a field day like the fol- 
lowing, the two teams enter into lively competition. 

The first event is Dodge Ball, which proves 
very exciting and scores points for the blues. 
The next is an obstacle race. This is very close 
and the cheering for both sides is deafening, un- 
til, by the brave effort of an ardent member of 
the Whites, her team wins. Next comes a fifty- 
yard dash, which is even in the semi-finals. A 



52 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

three-legged race furnishes fun, and scores once 
more for the blues. The next event, a Basket 
Goal Relay is full of excitement, for the Whites 
make five more baskets than the Blues, but the 
Blues finish first and make ten points, scoring 
five more than the Whites. In the last, a stick 
race, where the players prolong the suspense by 
dropping the sticks, the Blues come out ahead. 
Summing it all up, the Blues have won the day. 

One game the girls love to play at camp is base- 
ball. Some one once asked the venerable pres- 
ident of a well-known women's college if he 
did not think that playing baseball had a ten- 
dency to make girls "mannish.'' His reply was, 
"My dear sir, did you ever see the girls play?" 
Well, if the bat is a trifle heavy and the mitt in- 
clined to drop off, nevertheless with hard work 
and a gifted pitcher these disadvantages can be 
more than matched by our enthusiasm, and we 
can put up a game that will hold the side-lines in 
suspense through a long summer afternoon. 

A camp of younger girls, who were devoted to 
baseball, once challenged a team of college girls 
from a neighboring camp. The college girls 
were known to play a good game, but the juniors, 
nothing daunted, practised hard and came out 




A swimming party making the camp letter 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 53 

to meet their rivals with high spirits and a new 
song for the occasion which st§Lted frankly that: 

Camp has a ripping team, 

And they will win the day. 

Before the game opened, rain began to fall, and 
as the college girls proceeded to roll up the score, 
the rain kept coming down faster and faster, but 
neither side was willing to quit, and a loyal band 
of ^' rooters'^ stayed on under cover of rubber 
blankets. They played to the finish, and the 
juniors were badly beaten and thoroughly soaked, 
but they took it all with such fine spirit and such 
good humor that the college girls stopped to give 
them a rousing cheer before making a dash for 
their own camp quarters. The juniors, by this 
time headed for their own camp and nearly out of 

sight, were heard singing merrily, "Camp 

has a dripping team, dripping team!'' which they 
kept up until they came splashing into camp. 

There are other games which camp girls may 
go in for, such as hockey, or archery, or rifle- 
practice. Many girls use their spare time in 
keeping up their tennis. In most camps the ten- 
nis-courts are never idle. Ladder-tournaments 
keep the whole camp alive to the game, and when 



54 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

the time comes for final try-outs, the courts are 
worked overtime and the side-lines are always 
thronged with excited spectators. 

Riding, always a popular sport at camp, is 
stimulated by excursions into the surrounding 
country, over wood-trails and logging-roads, or 
over the hills and through the villages of the 
main highway. Time was when the spectacle of 
a line of girls in bloomer costume on horseback 
used to astonish the countryside. On one occa- 
sion a small urchin of three was seen to go into 
convulsions of laughter; but now not even the 
children turn to look, and the small boy's sister 
has adopted the bloomer costume for herself. 
The beginner has her lessons in the ring, until 
she learns to feel at home in the saddle and make 
friends with a certain horse. Before the end of 
the season she has learned to ride them all; and 
when the time comes for the try-outs for the camp 
letter, she knows all about saddling and bridling, 
feeding and watering, and the general care that 
a horse should have. 

When a camp girl goes in for anything, she 
works at it heart and soul, and one thing she al- 
ways goes in for is swimming. She would ra- 
ther miss anything else in the day's round — even 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 55 

dinner. In a typical camp, swimming-hour is 
something like this: 

As soon as the first horn blows, groups of 
thinly clad figures hurry down the path to the 
dock, picking their way with as much speed as 
bumpy ground and unprotected soles will allow. 
At the signal for ''All in!" there is a series of 
splashes, loud gurgles, and shrieks, followed by 
''Wow! This water is wonderful! Really, it 's 
not a bit c-o-o-old!" (splash) ''No! I said it 
was warm!" (chattering) "Come on in!" 
(splash) "Ow! Who said it was warm?" 
(splash) ''Wonderful!" And so on, until the 
space between the shore and the life-boat and 
raft is alive with bright-colored caps bobbing up 
and down on the surface of the water. In many 
camps the color of the cap indicates the grade of 
the swimmer. 

The beginners take fewer risks, and crawl or 
wade in with even more to-do until the water is 
above their waists, and then the swimming-mas- 
ter on the pier gets a rapid fire of questions from 
all directions. "Mr. B., did I get that right?" 
"Oh, Mr. B., will you watch my side stroke?" 
"Here, Mr. B., over here. Watch me! did I get 
my head under that time?" "Oh, Mr. B., did 



56 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

you see me? I floated that time!" Then, from 
the more advanced swimmers: ''Mr. B., do I 
get the breathing right?" "Please, Mr. B., show 
me the angel dive ! " "Yes, I want to try it, too ! " 
"Mr. B., now will you pass me on the crawl?" 
"Oh, Mr. B., how long before the bugle? Shall 
I have time to go down the chute just once?" 

Now and then you can hear the swimming- 
master: "Easy now, don't hurry. C-o-a-s-t." 
"Bend the elbow there!" "That's it; you're 
doing finely! " "Try again and close the fingers 
— stretch — that way!" "Watch the breathing — 
out— in!" 

For relaxation from this effort, some are play- 
ing around the raft and an overturned canoe, and 
others are sliding down the chute — the joy of 
some camps — into the water. The swimming 
period lasts about twenty minutes for each divi- 
sion, and then the bugle sounds for "All out! " 

What camp girl will ever forget the canoe-test, 
which meant keeping up in deep water, swim- 
ming or floating, with a boat alongside, for 
twenty minutes? To pass this was the goal of 
her first few weeks at camp, especially as every 
one else was trying for it, and without it no one 
was allowed to go out in a canoe. What excite- 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 57 

ment as one after another passed it — some girls 
who had never been able to swim a stroke before ! 
One of those who had never before tried to 
swim was Janet, an only child, from a town in 
Indiana. Here at camp was her opportunity, 
for, with a life-boat on one side and a strong 
swimmer on the pier, there was really nothing for 
her parents to worry about, especially as a fatal 
accident in the water has never been heard of 
in a girls' camp. So Janet made the most of her 
opportunities. She was a girl of keen observa- 
tion and good nerve. For the first few days she 
watched carefully from the dock everything the 
others did, until she had it firmly fixed in her 
mind. Then she practised it by herself, on her 
cot first and then in the water. She found she 
could swim a few strokes. She did the same way 
with floating. Then one day she found herself 
out in deep water ; she lost her nerve and thought 
she was swallowing the lake. She had to be res- 
cued and brought ashore, but the next moment, 
to everybody's surprise, she was back in deep wa- 
ter, trying it again. Before the end of the first 
month, Janet had passed the canoe-test. Later, 
when she came to take the further tests for the 
full use of a canoe, swimming fifty yards in camp 



58 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

clothes, undressing in deep water, and keeping 
up for half an hour, she used the same methods 
with the same courage, but nothing ever gave her 
quite the same satisfaction as passing the canoe- 
test. And that experience opened up for her a 
new sport, loved of campers — the sport of pad- 
dling. 

There are many such cases of pluck and perse- 
verance as girls keep advancing from one class 
in swimming to the next by passing various 
strokes and dives. Keen excitement is added to 
this by the record-chart, a bulletin, kept hanging 
in a conspicuous place, which records the ad- 
vancement of every girl in camp. To see an- 
other star opposite your name is surely a great in- 
centive to keep on working at the over-arm, 
crawl, or back dive. 

The requirements for the advanced grades in- 
clude such strokes as over-arm, crawl, trudgeon, 
and spiral, the various holds and breaks in life- 
saving, and any number of dives, from the straight 
dive to the jack-knife, the amount and kind de- 
pending upon the policy of the camp. The ideal 
of the girls' camps is to emphasize good form, ra- 
ther than speed or long-distance swimming, and 
the ability to met any emergency in the water, ra- 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 59 

ther than ^'stunts" which put a strain on the heart 
and lungs. 

To get the right form has tested the spirit of 
many a girl. Mary Louise was one who proved 
game by keeping on with a difficult stroke when 
all the girls told her she did it well enough. 
Mary Louise had been working on the crawl. 
She got the motions all right, but still the swim- 
ming-master was not satisfied. He urged her to 
keep on until she was able to breathe naturally 
and to feel relaxed while doing it. This was 
not so easy as it looked, and it required a great 
deal of patience, but Mary Louise was deter- 
mined to get another star. One day she found 
herself cutting through the water with scarcely 
any effort at all. She felt like the muskrat she 
had watched from a canoe. She knew that it was 
because she was relaxed and was filling her lungs 
at natural intervals. It had surely paid to get 
it right. In the final try-outs for endurance, 
there was keen competition, but Mary Louise won 
the camp letter. 

Pauline was a girl who could swim well, but 
could n't get up the courage to dive. One day 
the girls were practising the racing dive, for the 
water-sports meet with another camp, and the 



60 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

swimming-master urged Pauline to come in and 
join the team. Pauline was a girl who had not 
"found herself," and had not the secret of mak- 
ing friends, but there was a chorus at once of, 
"Oh yes, Pauline, come on in!" "But how 
could I?" protested Pauline. "I never made a 
dive in all my life ! " 

Just then an adored councilor came along to 
watch the fun. "Pauline," she said sternly, "if 
you don't try that dive and make that team, I 
shall not speak to you again." 

Pauline went in. She took the water in splen- 
did form, and swam with the team against the 
other camp. At the critical point in the relay- 
race she heard the crowd shouting, "Pauline! 
Go it, Pauline ! Oh, oh ! Pauline ! " and she com- 
prehended that the race now depended upon her. 
With her opponent closing in behind, she swam 
as she had never done before, spurred by an in- 
centive entirely new to her. She touched the pier 
first and won the day, and the shore fairly rang 
with her praise. From that day she has never 
hesitated to go in for things. She has now won 
for herself a good place in her camp. 

The rescue work, or life-saving, with the re- 
quirements of the United States Volunteer Life- 







The joy of the shde 




A war canoe iully manned 




Knitting as a handicraft 




A popular place for craft workers 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 61 

savers or even more difficult ones, puts a great 
deal of zest into the swimming. In order to pass 
the tests you must know at least three different 
holds which a drowning person would be likely 
to make while struggling and how to break them. 
You must also be able to dive to the bottom and 
bring up a supposedly drowned person in proper 
form — head first — and tow her ashore, using any 
one of three approved methods of carrying, as, 
for example, crooking the elbow under the chin 
of the victim and swimming on the side. You 
must then demonstrate an approved method 
of resuscitation, usually the Schaeffer method, 
which requires only one person to apply it. The 
first thing on reaching shore is to empty the water 
from the lungs; — which, by the way, would sel- 
dom be more than two or three teaspoonfuls in 
amount, — and induce breathing by pressure on 
the ribs. If you have ever been called upon to 
be the victim for some one's practice, you will un- 
derstand why it is still a question in some camps 
which form of death is to be preferred: life-sav- 
ing or mere drowning? 

In a camp where there had been a lively inter- 
est in passing the life-saving tests there was one 
girl who had an opportunity to show how well 



62 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

she had learned the most important thing — how 
to keep her head. It was a carnival day, and the 
crowd on the shore and in the boats were watch- 
ing the canoe stunts. Now came one where a 
girl had to jump overboard and get back again 
while her partner steadied the canoe. Peggy was 
in the canoe nearest shore. With her was a girl 
who had not learned the great lesson of camp — 
that the way to prove a good sport, when not 
strong, is sometimes to stay out. Beatrice had 
gone in under protest, and now, as Peggy struck 
the water, to her surprise her canoe capsized and 
Beatrice tumbled after her. The crowd cheered, 
thinking it had been done for effect, but Beatrice 
was not striking out. She had lost consciousness. 
The only one in the crowd who realized the se- 
riousness of the situation was Peggy. In an in- 
stant she was at Beatrice's side, and, supporting 
her under the waist, began towing her toward 
shore. She was met half-way by a strong swim- 
mer, and the crowd cheered again, this time for 
the real heroine of the water sports. 

At the end of camp there come the days of the 
try-outs, with contests in riding, tennis, and field 
sports. 

On the carnival day there are flags flying, 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— SPORTS 63 

crowds of gaily dressed people from the neigh- 
borhood, much shouting and camp singing, and 
the lake is alive with boats and canoes. There is 
a program of water sports, including swimming 
singles and relay-races, canoe doubles and sin- 
gles, tub-races, diving for form, obstacle-races 
and canoe stunts. When it is all over, some girls 
will wear on their sweaters the coveted camp let- 
ter. 

But there are some things worth more than the 
camp letter, which every girl will carry home. 
These are the things which she gained at camp 
and which will always be with her — a sense of 
achievement, joy in newly found muscles, the feel- 
ing that she can do more and more, and, possibly, 
show her older brother some things he can't do. 
Added to this is the recollection of blissful sum- 
mer days, of sunny shores, and association with 
care-free comrades. 



CHAPTER V 

CAMP ACTIVITIES — CRAFTS 

THERE are two sides to the camp girls' 
program — sports and occupations. This 
is the story of the occupations, which 
have a great fascination for the average camper. 
First, there are the handcrafts, that keep one 
busy for a part of every day and develop imagi- 
nation and skill in making things. Each girl 
chooses for herself what she wants to work at, 
and since they are all so appealing it is hard for 
a beginner to decide. The question is, is it to 
be the bead work, where the girls are making at- 
tractive head bands and necklaces; or basketry 
work in reed and raffia ; or shall she join the pot- 
tery class out doors and learn to make some of 
those bowls and jars that make such lovely gifts 
to take home; or shall it be stencilling or block 
printing or wool embroidery, studies in color and 
design to be applied to table runners and pillow 
covers that will be nice to take to boarding 

64 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 65 

school; or shall she take carpentry and wood 
carving and make a letter rack for a table; or 
weaving; or rug making; or metal work in cop- 
per or jewelry of silver? Not all of these, to be 
sure, are offered at any one camp, but there are 
sure to be three or four, and the choice between 
any of these is difficult. So it is a good thing 
that in a good camp one is advised to take the one 
best suited to her capacity and not to undertake 
the more advanced work such as jewelry making 
until she has mastered some of the simpler arts, 
such as basket making. Also, to make good in 
crafts she must use her own originality and put 
her best work on her design rather than on a 
great quantity of hand work. One piece with an 
original design is worth more than half a dozen 
that are copied from some one else. 

In one camp the girls of the crafts department 
did an interesting thing when they combined all 
their efforts in working out a problem in interior 
decorating. There was a dingy attic room in 
the camp, and they undertook to decorate and 
furnish it, under the inspiration of the crafts 
councilor. They had a good time doing it, be- 
cause every one had a part. Using light tinted 
wall board to cover the ill-matched boards and 



66 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 

applying stain to the strips used for joining, and 
also to the floor, one squad furnished the back- 
ground. Another squad contributed the furni- 
ture, which consisted of an old-fashioned bed, bu- 
reau and chair, pulled out from the dust and cob- 
webs and made fresh and new with French gray 
paint and a lovely design in color, which had 
been chosen from a competition by the whole 
class. The bed spread, made of unbleached 
muslin, with the chosen design appliqued in 
lovely colors in the center, the colored hangings 
of dyed muslin, the screen and heavy curtains 
of burlap decorated with the same design in wool 
embroidery, the scrap basket, candle sticks and 
tray for the dressing table were all the hand work 
of the rest of the craft workers. So it was no 
wonder that when it was all finished, every girl 
in camp was eager to show visitors the new guest 
room. 

In another camp the girls, wanting to add a 
touch of color to their living room, furnished cur- 
tains and pillows of dyed muslin with designs in 
oriental tied work, which the craft workers had 
dyed out of doors. 

At the end of the summer all the finished work 
is arranged in the most attractive form for an ex- 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 67 

hibition and the effect is like a Red Cross bazaar, 
with visitors from the village and hotel. Judges 
are appointed to decide upon the merit of 
the work. The guests are filled with admiration 
and surprise, that all this lovely display is the 
work of the campers. And the girl who has put 
herself, heart and soul into her work, who has 
used her own originality, who has stuck to what 
she has begun, has a little thrill of pride as she 
hears a visitor say "What! You don't mean 
that a camp girl made THAT! " 

Now there is another kind of craft, known as 
camp craft, or wood craft, which is the romantic 
part of camp life. It has to do with birds and 
trees, stars and trails, open fires, camping out 
parties and over-night hikes. Camp craft be- 
gins with the things near home — short hikes to 
find flowers or ferns or study the birds. One girl 
was astonished to find that there were thirty-two 
kinds of flowers to be found without leaving the 
camp grounds, and among them members of fa- 
miliar families, as the lily and the rose and the 
orchid. A visiting specialist makes all these 
things very interesting and in one walk with a 
person who can show you what there is to see in 
the woods you can learn to know any number of 



68 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

different kinds of maples and pines and beeches 
and find all sorts of interesting things as you go 
along. The most fascinating and romantic part 
of this nature work is at night, studying the stars, 
lying on your back on the grass while some one 
points out the Hunter, the Great Bear and Cas- 
siopeia. If the astronomer has a telescope, he 
shows the stars to an eager crowd about bed time, 
and the craters of the moon. And the campers 
who are most interested go to bed with alarm 
clocks and get up at two o'clock in the morning 
to see the heavens at a more favorable time. 

In these days a part of the business of being 
a camper is to know camping and trailing. To 
make good in this part of the camp program one 
must know how to make and break camp, to pitch 
a tent, to make different kinds of fires required for 
heat and for cooking and know something about 
trail blazing and outdoor cooking. So for the 
newcomers there is a camp craft walk, to learn 
about sensing directions — to know which is 
southeast and which northwest — trail blazing 
and outdoor cooking. On starting out, one girl 
is appointed to lead the way and find the trail. 
The party is in her hands. If she loses the trail, 
no one must help her out. She must find it her- 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 69 

self. Margaret leads out bravely following the 
little path into the woods, and is followed by five 
other girls and the councilor, all equipped with 
knapsacks carrying the supper. When they get 
into the deep woods, all at once the trail seems 
to vanish. Margaret is stuck, and the party is 
held up. A few yards beyond there is a blaze 
on a tree, which is discovered by a pair of bright 
eyes behind Margaret. But she must not tell. 
The party must wait for Margaret. They sit 
down on a log while a puzzled girl wanders 
around getting nearer all the while to the tree. 
All at once there is a shriek of joy and the trail 
is found. They go on without difficulty till they 
come to the open. By the shore of a lake they 
make a fire and have their first experience in 
cooking a camp supper, not a small part of which 
is to clean up the grounds, put out the fire and 
burn or bury all rubbish. For a good camper 
always leaves the spot as beautiful as she found 
it. 

Bye and bye one knows all the trails around 
camp and it is time for a camping out party, an 
experience of romance and adventure that has 
been handed down from the earliest days of 
camps. Get together half a dozen hikers who 



70 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

are good for ten miles, invite a councilor, each 
girl taking her blankets and some food in a knap- 
sack, and we set out in the middle of the after- 
noon. Our path leads us through the woods, 
around the lake and across the fields, skirting the 
edge of the village, till it brings us to a narrow 
country road that leads in general direction 
toward far off blue mountains. We hike along 
briskly, shifting the blanket rolls now and then 
over our shoulders and stopping only for a few 
minutes at the spring by the roadside. Bye and 
bye we turn off from the road and follow a rocky 
trail, a sign that we will soon be there. A few 
minutes later we come upon the chosen spot 
where a little brook bubbles up among the rocks 
and boulders at the edge of the woods and then 
spreads out over the meadow below. It is late 
afternoon and yellow rays from the setting sun 
are shedding a fantastic light over the rocks and 
trees and even changing the color of our mid- 
dies and knapsacks. 

We cast off the blanket rolls and throw down 
our knapsacks and divide up for camp duty, some 
gathering wood and building the fire, some get- 
ting the water and others going to the little farm 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 71 

house down below for milk. In the glow of the 
setting sun we cook supper and make camp for 
the night. We find nice level places to spread 
out the blankets and double up — two girls to a 
bed. First we lay a rubber blanket, then a 
woolen one, and for the top, a woolen then a rub- 
ber one. Pinned tightly together they form a 
sleeping bag for two, while the sweaters rolled up 
serve as pillows. 

Supper in this enchanted spot, looking off over 
meadows and woodland to distant purple moun- 
tain peaks is like a fairy tale, and so is the later 
evening after the fiery sunset glow has faded and 
darkness begins to gather, when the fire has set- 
tled down to a steady glow, reflecting only the 
ruddy faces of the campers seated around. We 
linger till long after time for Taps, and when 
finally the spell is broken by the councilor telling 
us to go to bed, we add one thing more to this 
wonderful day by going out into the meadow to 
study the stars. But at last we find our camping 
place, roll up our sweaters and crawl into our lit- 
tle pockets on the ground and pull up the blan- 
kets over us. And while the campers of far 
away yesterday are fast asleep in their cots with 



72 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

a roof overhead and a floor below, we are thrilled 
as we lie down among tall grasses that wave on 
every side to sleep under the open sky. 

We are awakened at an early hour by the thud 
of hoofs in a pasture near by and the piercing 
rays of the early sun. We get an early start and 
have finished breakfast before the sound of rev- 
eille has awakened the campers at home. Then 
we hurry to break camp, rolling up the blankets 
quickly, packing the knapsacks, and after clean- 
ing up the beautiful camping ground, we are off. 
We bounce along the rocky trail and are soon out 
on the open road swinging along with an even 
pace on the way back to camp. We cover the ten 
miles without blisters, and though hot and dusty 
come into camp in fine style — with firm step and 
singing a marching song. The stay-at-homes 
are there to greet us, and we reach the porch steps 
just in time to hear the welcome call of the horn 
for swimming. We lose no time in getting into 
bathing suits and crown the adventure with a 
swim in the cool smooth waters of the lake. 

In the older camps this romantic side of camp 
life is being more and more emphasized, thus 
going back to the customs of the early days. 
For there was a time when a camping party 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 73 

thought nothing of staying two or three days, 
though only a few miles away from camp. In a 
group of camps on the Vermont-New Hampshire 
border, the arts of real camping are stimulated by 
inter-camp competition in camp craft, teams from 
two or more camps meeting every now and then at 
some camping place half-way and entering into 
a contest in making and breaking camp, fire mak- 
ing and cooking. First Aid contests are held at 
one camp or the other and judged by outside doc- 
tors and Red Cross nurses. 

One of the most interesting things attempted 
by this group of camps is an inter-camp trail 
which is designed to connect the camps with 
each other and to enable the hikers to leave the 
highway as much as possible. The six miles of 
this inter-camp trail already made by three or 
more camps lead the hikers by a lake and over 
hills and through the woods on their visits to 
each other, and it is hoped that in time it will be 
extended to link all the camps in the group for a 
distance of about a hundred miles on each side of 
the Connecticut River. Along this trail will be 
shelters for the hikers, after the example of the 
Dartmouth College Outing Club and the Appa- 
lachian Mountain Club, the hospitality of whose 



74 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

trails and shelters these campers have long en- 
joyed. The first of these shelters or inter-camp 
shacks was built in 1917 at the foot of Mount 
Cube in central Vermont, and the camps having a 
part in it came together at the beginning of the 
next summer for a christening party. Perhaps 
you would like to hear about it. 

In choosing this site for the first inter-camp 
shack, girls from several camps met together 
and cooked and spent the night. Way up on the 
side of the steep slope that leads to the foot of the 
mountain, in the pasture field right at the edge 
of the woods near where the rocky trail begins, 
they found a lovely spot that commands a rare 
view of hills and meadows and mountain peaks 
and which looks way off over the summit of Moo- 
silauke to the projecting peaks of the Presidential 
range. Nestled at the foot of the slope are the 
house and barns of a friendly farmer, while off to 
the left and not far away is the Mount Cube 
cabin of the Dartmouth Outing Club. 

In the fall the shack was built — a long build- 
ing of logs in the form of an Adirondack lean-to, 
with the side looking off toward the mountains 
entirely open. The interior is divided by a 
great stone chimney into two parts, one for a 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 75 

sleeping shelter in case of rain and the other for 
a living room and a place to cook. Meeting 
here together one late afternoon at the call of the 
chairman, delegations from the various camps 
had supper together and a beautiful house warm- 
ing ceremony. 

After an outdoor supper in the glow of a mag- 
nificent sunset which glorified the view of the 
hills and mountains the presiding camp leader 
called the camps together around a camp fire and 
the ceremony began by singing the ''Long, Long 
Trail." The chairman of the committee then 
was called upon to tell this group of campers — 
who by the way were chosen for proficiency in 
camp craft to represent their camps at this gath- 
ering — something of the history of building the 
shack and the obstacles overcome, after which 
they all joined in singing ''Keep the Home Fires 
Burning." At this point there was a most im- 
pressive ceremony of a patriotic nature, without 
which no program was ever complete in war 
times, introduced by two camp girls. These 
girls, one of whom was popularly known in her 
camp as "Libs" and the other in hers as "Just 
Betty" had gone out on the mountainside before 
supper and out of materials found there had im- 



76 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

provised an American flag. As you have never 
seen, and perhaps never will see, a flag like this, 
I will try to describe it. In the first place, its 
colors were the true red, white and blue of our 
national banner. Its materials were leaves and 
birch bark. For the stripes there were bright red 
maple leaves, touched by a summer frost alter- 
nated with white birch bark. The field of blue 
was furnished by dark blue wild flowers. The 
stars were white clover. As this flag was 
brought on by the two girls the company rose and 
joined in singing ^'Columbia, the Gem of the 
Ocean." There have been many patriotic dem- 
onstrations in these times, but few have been more 
simple and impressive than this one with its ban- 
ner of freedom furnished by the mountainside 
and its expression of patriotism out under the 
open sky and witnessed only by themselves and 
the stately trees that grow on the side of Mount 
Cube. 

The christening of the shack was the next 
thing on the program. As the leader called the 
roll of the camps one after another their represen- 
tatives came forward and threw fagots into the 
fire, each fagot bearing the sentiment or mes- 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— CRAFTS 77 

sage of the camp. First came Aloha, oldest of 
the group, and threw in the fagot of Love — Aloha 
meaning Love — Next was Hanoum, whose 
fagot was taken from an historic poplar tree 
around which are woven many of the traditions of 
the camp. The fagot bore the message of strength 
and beauty. Aloha Club came next, with the 
fagot of Fellowship. Then Tahoma, who threw 
in fagot of Memory and Aloha Hive, who stood 
for Keeping Step. Then Serranna, whose fagot 
expressed Vision. An extra fagot was thrown in 
for Wyoda, a camp that had been detained. At 
the end of the christening ceremony the campers 
joined hands in a big circle around the fire and 
sang in parting ''Auld Lang Syne." 

On the walls of the Mount Cube shack are in- 
scribed the names of the camps and the meaning 
of the fagots which in the years to come will be 
cherished by the hundreds of girls who will have 
come to know the value of inter-camp fellow- 
ship through camping together at the foot of 
Mount Cube. 

The work of this group of camps in relation 
to camp craft has only begun, and we hope that 
each year may see more and more interest on the 



78 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

part of all the camps in this fascinating side of 
camp life. And we hope that camp girls every- 
where will turn from the more artificial type of 
camping and learn to love more and more the 
simple life in the out of doors. 



CHAPTER VI 

CAMP ACTIVITIES TRIPS 

GOING on any of the trips?" an "old" 
girl asks Hilda, as they meet at break- 
fast the first morning in camp. But 
Hilda is so taken up with the new surroundings 
that she has not begun to think about trips. Be- 
fore many days have passed, however, she finds 
herself thinking more and more about them, es- 
pecially if she is a girl who is strong enough to 
stand three or four days on the mountain or a 
canoe journey down-stream. And as time goes 
on and she hears the others talk, the trips loom 
large on the summer's horizon. 

One trip that hundreds of girls encamped 
"somewhere in New England," look forward to 
each year, involving from two to four days on 
the trails of the Presidential Range, with the 
nights spent in mountain huts, is the climb up 
Mount Washington. Any girl who has been for- 
tunate enough to take this trip has gained some- 

79 



80 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

thing from her summer to last the rest of her life. 
The opportunity comes about the middle of the 
season, after the campers have been tested by the 
short tramps near camp as well as some shorter 
climbs. A party is made up, of ten or a dozen 
girls, with a councilor or two and a guide — per- 
haps the swimming-master. These lucky indi- 
viduals are called together the night before to 
confer about food, the time for starting, the 
proper foot-gear for guarding against blisters, 
and other little details. By this time the whole 
camp is carried away by their enthusiasm. 

Next morning, near dawn, as Betty is dream- 
ing lightly, tucked away in her cot on the hillside, 
she feels a stealthy whack across her covers and 
starts up with a thrill, knowing it is the signal 
to get up and get ready to start. She hops out 
of bed and proceeds to dress quickly, and with as 
little noise as possible for fear of wakening her 
tent-mates. Down along the line she can see the 
others going through the same motions in their 
tents — divmg into trunks for clean middies, 
scrambling up to the swinging shelf overhead for 
sweaters, and rummaging through their tent- 
mates' things for hair-pins. She tiptoes about 
cautiously, but why is it, when you are trying to 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 81 

be so careful, you are bound to stumble over some- 
body's trunk, or drop the mirror on the floor? 
By and by she gives her hair a final pat before 
the glass, gathers up her sweater, slips out of her 
tent, and runs down the path to where an early 
breakfast is waiting and where some friends with 
true camp spirit, who have been up since dawn 
buttering sandwiches, are stuffing the last 
oranges into bulging knapsacks. 

Breakfast is choked down in great excitement; 
and before the last knapsack is buckled on, the 
bugle routs out the rest of the camp, who come 
running from every direction to say good-by. 
Some of the girls are fully dressed, others — well, 
not so fully. But what does it matter so long as 
one gets there in time to get into the fray? Ev- 
erybody helps it along — jostling and crowding, 
embracing their tent-mates, and calling and 
shouting good-by. And when the party finally 
breaks away and starts out on the run in sheer 
self-defense, the stay-at-homes line up and sing 
to them until they are away down the road and 
out of sight. 

The party sets out in good camp costume — 
that is, all just alike. Each girl wears a clean 
white middy and spotless white duck hat ; bloom- 



82 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

ers and tie in true camp color; and pinned to her 
blouse somewhere with a huge safety-pin, a tin 
cup and a tooth-brush. A song which comes 
from a camp in New Hampshire describes them: 

When you wore a tin cup and I wore a knapsack, 
And each wore a tooth-brush too, 
We 'd scarcely a penny, and troubles not any. 
For we went out for a view. 

Thus equipped and in high spirits, they swing 
along the road to the station, and, with the aid of 
passing automobiles or their own good muscles, 
reach there in time for the train, which is soon 
bearing them far away from camp and everyday 
scenes into a new world of rare and wonderful 
experiences. 

It is noon when they reach the little station at 
the foot of the great mountain, and they lose no 
time in finding a place beside a brook, where 
they lighten the knapsacks for the first meal. 
After that, a few minutes to stretch out on the 
grass, and the long climb begins. 

Perhaps you have heard about that long climb 
up the steep trail on Mount Madison, where, in 
spite of your brave start, your steps soon begin 
to lag, and you develop a longing for a cool drink, 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 83 

that increases with each half-mile; how you toil 
on, with a camper's dogged determination, drag- 
ging one weary foot after another, until at last, 
with parched throat, you come to a place that 
looks like the end, only to find that it is the sign- 
post that marks the half-way point of the trail. 
This trip, we are told by a seasoned camper from 
one of the older White Mountain camps, affords 
a good opportunity to develop character. Per- 
haps so. At any rate, it serves to bring out the 
hidden qualities of a camper as many weeks in 
camp might fail to do. To be sure, the trail is 
hard. But which one would think of going back, 
or of wishing she had not come? And as for the 
unfailing good humor we hear about, it is just 
such occasions as this that call it forth. In fact, 
the greater the discomfort, the funnier the situa- 
tion. So right here somebody's sense of humor 
is sure to rise to the occasion, and the effect is ir- 
resistible. It is even reflected in the song taken 
back to camp. 

Moreover, that quality called "camp spirit" in- 
evitably comes to the fore and impels you to think 
of the other fellow — the one who is having a 
harder time than yourself. Perhaps the others 
are getting far ahead, but you wait for your tent- 



84 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

mate, who cannot acquire your pace. Or one of 
the stragglers is having trouble with the loose 
ground, and you wait to help her over a hard 
place. By and by you reach the spring, but here, 
alas ! your good judgment and self-control forbid 
you drinking enough to quench your thirst. Yes, 
it calls for camp spirit, a sense of humor, and a 
grim resolve to be a good sport. But who has 
ever failed on a mountain trip? 

Then at last, late in the afternoon, you emerge 
from the scrubby bushes and find yourself on the 
rocks of Mount Madison. When you first turn 
to look, you are held entranced. So far, your 
eyes have been on the trail; now you look out on 
a scene of vast wonder and beauty. Standing on 
the bare top, you look down on an immense gulf, 
with a great ravine which opens out into a valley 
beyond. Far, far down below, in the world from 
which you came such a short time ago, are minia- 
ture fields like little green patches, and the lakes 
are tiny pools of water. Away out beyond, vast 
mountains circle you and stretch on and on, away 
to the horizon. Just across the way, and facing 
you, is a gigantic mountain, a craggy peak with 
queer black rocks and enveloped in gray mist. 
It is all wild and eery, as though peopled by hid- 




O 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 85 

den giants and Titans, who might at any time 
stride across the opening and seize you. 

Strange to say, you are not at all tired now. 
You linger over the view until the sun sets over 
an ocean of mist, and then make your way, with 
a feeling of exhilaration, down to the Madison 
Huts. These huts of the Appalachian Moun- 
tain Club are built of native stone near the top of 
Mount Madison. Hundreds of tourists each 
year enjoy their hospitality through the courtesy 
of the club. One hut contains sleeping-quarters, 
the bunks, filled with balsam, being surprisingly 
comfortable after the trail. The other contains 
the dining-room and kitchen. Oftentimes the 
hut is crowded, when two or three camps, besides 
some tourists, arrive on the same night. But 
what if the crowd is bigger than the accommoda- 
tions? Who should be better qualified to meet 
the emergency than a lot of rugged campers out 
for a lark? Up here on the mountain one is 
thankful for half, or even one-third of a bunk; 
and as for food, you find yourself fairly gloating 
over a two-days-old sandwich or a charred piece 
of bacon. 

After supper, your spirits revived with food 
and the exhilarating mountain air, you climb up 



86 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

over the rocks once more. The tourists may pre- 
fer the fireside, but you want to take in all you 
can of the cold strange beauty of the great moun- 
tain. So, in spite of the chilly air, you linger on 
to watch the moon light up the valley below, un- 
til at last the councilor insists upon going to bed. 

"We did not sleep much," one girl writes home, 
"for every one was having too good a time." But 
the fact is, you sleep more than you realize, — the 
councilors can prove it, — and the next morning 
finds you up, bright and fresh, scrambling once 
more over the rocks. Were there ever so many 
rocks deposited in one place as there are up here 
on the mountain-top! Just rocks and mountain 
peaks in every direction! In fact, that is all 
you see that day ; for after breakfast, cooked over 
an open fire, you start on the journey — around 
Adams, both John and Quincy, along by the 
Great Gulf, around Jefferson, where you have the 
unique experience of "caching" your name in a 
little cylinder which is kept hidden away in the 
ground, and over Clay, where you make the stop 
for lunch from the fast-dwindling supplies in the 
knapsacks. 

Then at last you strike the trail that leads up 
the slopes of Washington, and follow the lead 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 87 

of the little engine on the cog railway. Nobody 
is tired now. You begin to feel all the physical 
exhilaration of the climb and the inspiring views. 

If you were on the top in clear weather, you 
carried away impressions of wide sweeps, of su- 
perb views, extending far down to the fields be- 
low. But have you ever looked down from 
Mount Washington on the clouds — clouds all 
around, so full and white that they seem like the 
sky? Over yonder you can see what looks like 
the outlines of an Aladdin's palace. While you 
watch it, with a growing fascination, it slowly 
rises out of the mist and becomes a mountain 
peak. And it is not above you at all, but straight 
ahead on the horizon. There is another whole 
line of these; and obscured by the mist, the sug- 
gestion is far more enchanting than the bare out- 
line. As you stand gazing at it, you have a new 
feeling of physical power and achievement that 
has been growing all the while. You might say, 
a whole new outlook on life. One girl said, 
when she looked off from the top of this moun- 
tain, she felt as though she ''could never again 
say anything mean." 

Down on the side of Mount Washington, near 
the Lake of the Clouds, is another A.M.C. hut, 



88 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

a very popular place for the second night. Be- 
sides the attraction of a hot supper prepared by 
the hut-masters, the berths here have real springs. 
On the whole, a night at the Lake of the Clouds 
is a fine experience, especially if you climb to the 
top of Mount Monroe after supper to sing camp 
songs and watch the moon rise. Better still if, 
in place of the moonlight, there is a thunder-cloud 
moving about below, which in turn gives place 
to brilliant northern lights, as one party had the 
good fortune to witness. 

Next morning, after a dip in the Lake of the 
Clouds for the more ambitious, comes the begin- 
ning of the end of this wonderful trip. Yes, 
just when you are having the finest kind of a 
time, you have to say good-by to the rocks and 
the views and the kindly hut-masters and start 
down the Crawford trail, in order to catch the 
noon train for camp. That is, unless you hap- 
pen to be fortunate enough to have an extra day 
and make the excursion into Tuckerman's Ra- 
vine, or return home some other way. But yet 
the trip is not over. For have you not enough 
to carry away to last forever — the wide sweeps, 
breaths of exhilarating air, the wonderful clouds, 
and, best of all, the good old friends, grown 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 89 

dearer through the days together on the moun- 
tains ? And although the dusty roads and smoky 
trains make you long for the top, still you are 
not unwilling to go back to your camp home and 
the good friends awaiting you there. In fact, 
you keep growing more and more impatient to 
get there and see them all again. The fact is, 
the welcome prepared by the stay-at-homes is a 
fitting climax to the whole glorious experience. 
But that would require another story. 

Another trip that is a close rival to Mount 
Washington in some New England camps is the 
climb up Mount Moosilauke, including a visit to 
Lost River, the Flume, Agassiz Basin, and the 
Old Man of the Mountain. The campers usu- 
ally climb by the beautiful Glen trail, and spend 
the night on top, where there are entrancing 
views in every direction — on one side, the broad 
fields of the valley of the upper Connecticut, with 
that winding stream in the foreground and the 
Green Mountains beyond, and on the other lofty 
peaks of the White Mountains. From Moosi- 
lauke's broad summit one can see into four States, 
and away beyond to the Adirondacks and Can- 
ada. The night at the Tip Top House, with the 
wind howling by, has been written up in many 



90 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

a camp log, as well as the gypsy days that fol- 
low, down on the other side of the mountain, ex- 
ploring the mysteries of Lost River's spooky caves, 
which offer such strange, fascinating experiences 
as sliding through the Lemon Squeezer, the Rat 
Hole and the Forty- foot Crawl, and looking into 
the Cave of the Shadows, the Bottomless Pit and 
other weird places among the rocks, sliding down 
over the slippery rocks at the Flume, and walk- 
ing the long miles to the Old Man of the Moun- 
tain — that strange face chiseled out of the top- 
most rock, — while gay tourists hail you from lux- 
urious automobiles with, "Have a good time, 
girls!" 

One of these days we shall hear, also, of the 
trips of the campers in the far West, over prec- 
ipices and into deep cafions in Colorado; or from 
one of those younger camps in Wisconsin, where 
their trips take them out to explore new lands, 
while they live like trappers, with a branch camp 
as a base. From the South we have an account 
of a unique trip, taken by the campers in Ken- 
tucky from their camp home on a farm in the 
Blue Grass country to their cabin in the moun- 
tains. 

The start is made in a big launch, into which 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 91 

they pile the provisions, blankets, and the whole 
camp besides, for every soul goes along. This 
launch trip of eighty miles up the Kentucky 
River lasts about three days. They take an easy 
pace and have a royal good time on the way. 
Each day's program includes a swim, and the 
campers do their own cooking over an open fire 
on shore. At night they camp out — on clear 
nights on the river bank, and when it rains, in 
a hay-loft. When they reach the end of the river 
trip they leave the launch and start across the 
mountains on mule-back, a ride of twenty-five 
•miles. A few make the trip in the wagon which 
carries the baggage and provisions. They all ar- 
rive at the cabin in time for a hot supper, pre- 
pared by the mountaineer cook, named ^'Red 
Moll." This is the country about which John 
Fox, Jr., has written several short stories. Dur- 
ing their stay the campers make excursions into 
the mountain country, one of which is to Hell-fer- 
Sartin Creek. The campers in their bloomers 
are as much of a curiosity to the quaint moun- 
taineers as they themselves are to the camp girls. 
Another trip that appeals to camp girls every- 
where is the canoe trip. Only those who have 
passed the swimming tests and demonstrated their 



92 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

ability to handle a canoe may sign up for this. 
Down in Maine or in northern New Hamp- 
shire the canoes go from lake to lake with short 
carries between; while on the Vermont-New 
Hampshire border they drift for many miles 
down the beautiful winding Connecticut. 

The story of a canoe trip from a popular camp 
in Maine, on the shores of Lake Sebago is full of 
interest. It was a four-day trip, over a sixty- 
mile stretch of beautiful clear waters of mountain 
lakes and was made in war canoes, each one 
manned by a practised crew of a dozen or more. 
After prolonged good-bys from the whole camp, 
assembled at the dock the crews pushed off from 
shore, leaving the stay-at-homes to wave them 
out of sight and record the picture in their click- 
ing cameras. The early morning sun gleamed 
brightly on the waters and the long canoes shot 
out across the lake, the blades of the paddles re- 
sponding regularly to the count ^^one-two, one- 
two," from the councilor in the stern. After a 
little while they rounded an island, and the wind 
stiffened, roughening the surface of the waters. 
But these crews were organized, trained and 
drilled for such weather, and as the girls said, 
''the more our water horses leaped, the more we 




if 




Hi 



k .1 




CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 93 

shouted for joy." So, pushing on gaily the 
morning soon passed and noon found them pass- 
ing the mouth of the Songo, where they found a 
landing place. Here they stopped for lunch and 
— not to be omitted on any occasion — a swim. 
Setting out once more, with all hands at the pad- 
dles the canoes danced merrily over the waves, till 
they spied an inviting place along the shore for 
another stop, this time for rest hour. So it was 
late afternoon when they finally reached the end 
of the first day's journey, and under the wing of 
a sister camp found a good camping place for 
the night. 

Next morning, after a night under the stars and 
a good breakfast cooked over the camp fire, they 
glided out once more into the open waters and all 
paddling well together, sped along past the Im- 
ages and into Jordon Bay. The first stop that 
day was at a small town which these girls say is 
"a metropolis which you can see for miles away 
but which you can never come to nor get at." But 
at last they found the landing place, and an hour 
or two later were on their way and having great 
sport paddling up the winding rivulet called 
Panther Run, which, they declare, is so winding 



94 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

in its course that the stern paddler has to keep 
her eyes open lest she lose sight of the bow pad- 
dler. Leaving this stream by a short carry 
around the Falls, they entered Panther Pond and 
all drew up on the beach for a swim. Crossing 
this lake they came to Rattlesnake Pond and at 
sunset their eyes rested on a lovely pine grove, 
where they promptly decided to make camp for 
the second night. This was a wonderful night, 
just made for a canoe trip, for after supper the 
moon came up, and even though all hands had 
been plying the paddles all day, who could resist 
the appeal of a paddle in the moonlight? It 
proved to be a lovely adventure, for in their 
course they met three strange canoes. On greet- 
ing them heartily, in true camp fashion, they 
found that they too were out from a camp near 
by, which the Sebago girls were invited to visit. 
Before stretching out between the blankets for the 
night they all went in for a moonlight dip, which 
made a perfect ending to the second day. 

The trip home was not without interesting ad- 
ventures — back over the same course, through 
Rattlesnake, across Panther and out into Lake 
Sebago. After the third night spent with a 
friend of the camp, they set out on the last lap of 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 95 

the journey, heading straight across the lake for 
the camp, all singing merrily and swinging their 
blades to the ever recurring "one-two," till at last, 
directly in front of them their own camp grounds 
brightened the landscape. Coming in three 
abreast singing the camp's paddling song — for 
every trip must finish in style — ^they landed on 
their own beach amid the greetings of camp 
mates. 

The trip down the Connecticut is somewhat 
different. The start is made in the early morn- 
ing, when the canoes are taken to the bank of the 
stream by wagon, shoved over the bank, and 
loaded with blanket-rolls, food, and campers, 
then shoved out into midstream and started down 
with the current. It is the most care-free day 
of the summer, that first day on the river. Each 
canoe has a councilor and at least two good pad- 
dlers. The rest of the crew settle down on the 
blanket-rolls on the bottom, and the seasoned 
camper pulls her hat down over her head and 
gives herself up to the hours of pure enjoyment 
ahead. For it is pure enjoyment to feel yourself 
floating on and on down-stream, now passing 
grassy banks with white farm-houses and with 
cows in the distant pasture ; now skimming along 



96 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

in the shade by the bank and watching the turtles 
or a sly muskrat slide into the water below, now 
out again in midstream, drifting close to the 
other canoes in order to read aloud or to sing 
camp songs. The gleam of the paddles in the 
sun, the open sky, the cool breeze as you round the 
bend, and the deep pools and shady banks, leave 
impressions that come back to you months later 
with the first hot days of spring. 

At noon you leave the canoes for a grassy bank 
near a spring, where you have lunch and a good 
romp; then, with a new set of paddlers, you start 
out on the last stretch in order to reach the camp- 
ing-place before night. Now and then a party 
has the good fortune to pass a crew from another 
camp on the way, and the canoes stop to exchange 
friendly greetings. 

The late afternoon finds you at the island, 
where the canoes are drawn up on the beach and 
unloaded, and preparations are made for supper, 
which is cooked over a beach fire. Then, after 
sunset, a big camp-fire, with songs and stories 
and all the good friends, adds a finishing touch 
to the picture, and you go back to tell the camp 
that it was the "best time in all your life! " 

We will leave it to your imagination to picture 




> 



CAMP ACTIVITIES— TRIPS 97 

the long cruise which the girls take at the sea- 
shore camps. The moonlight nights on deck or 
on the beach, the dinners of fresh sea-food, and 
the ever increasing fascination of sailing on and 
on over inland waters, are some of the charms 
the trips hold for their campers. 



CHAPTER VII 

WAR TIMES IN THE SUMMER CAMPS 

SOMETIME before the opening of the 
camps in the spring of 1917, the National 
Association of Camp Directors for both 
boys' and girls' camps met in New York to dis- 
cuss the part the camps were to play in the pres- 
ent world crisis, and what was to be the contribu- 
tion of the boys and girls in summer camps 
toward winning the war. 

We had heard rumors here and there that the 
camps would be closed, or offered to the Govern- 
ment for military purposes, but that would have 
been a great mistake. For the Spanish War 
taught us that every man can help his country by 
guarding his own health. Besides, the summer 
camp is the very best place in the world to develop 
patriotism among boys and girls, for the spirit of 
the camps has always been the spirit of service, 
and if any other place can produce more genuine 
enthusiasm, we have not yet heard from it. 

98 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 99 

When the girls' camps opened, they were fuller 
than ever, and every one was committed to a 
program that included war-time activities besides 
the regular schedule of work and play, and which, 
in spirit at least, was not far behind the army 
camps. For while the boys in the military 
camps were occupied with patroling, signaling, 
marching, and hiking, the girls were following a 
similar program with trail-making, wigwagging, 
hiking, and scouting, and for ^'detail" Red Cross 
work, first aid, gardening, canning and preserv- 
ing, home nursing and dietetics. 

Everywhere the spirit of patriotism was in the 
air. For example, a visitor driving up in the 
early evening to a certain camp on a Vermont 
hillside tells how he was arrested by a sharp note 
from the bugle, and instantly every figure on the 
grounds, whether in the tents or on the verandas, 
on tennis-courts or piers, drew up taut and stood 
at attention while the bugler played to the colors 
and the flag was lowered. Next morning before 
breakfast the camp assembled around the pole at 
a call from the bugle, and after two honor-girls 
had raised the flag they all pledged allegiance 
with equal ceremony. Many of the camps have 
always used the regulation army bugle-calls for 



100 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

the daily schedule, and some have had on their 
program the raising and lowering of the flag; 
but now that we are in the war, these ceremonies 
have been instituted in many more and have be- 
come a part of the daily program. 

The Fourth of July was a memorable occasion 
for camp girls. On that day, by common con- 
sent, the flag-raising ceremony was to take place 
at about the same hour in all the girls' camps 
throughout the land. Any further program was 
to be a matter of choice. In one place a group 
of camps which are near neighbors in a beautiful 
lake region combined for an all-day celebration. 
The exercises began in the early morning with 
the raising of a fine new flag at Camp B. At a 
given hour all the campers assembled by the side 
of the big flagpole by the lake shore and stood in 
waiting. Then a burst of song came through the 
woods beyond, and soon a double line of girls in 
brown and white from Camp A swung down the 
path, marching in close formation with marshals 
at their sides. Guides from Camp B went out to 
meet the visitors and conducted them to their 
place on the other side of the pole. When all 
were in place they joined in pledging allegiance 
to the flag and in singing the national anthem. 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 101 

After that, Camp B'^^s hymn was sung, and both 
sides formed in line and marched back to the 
shore of another beautiful lake, where Camp A's 
flag was raised with the same ceremony, followed 
by their camp hymn. 

The effect was beautiful and inspiring — the 
setting of woodland and lake, the loyal campers 
in brown and green, the expression of their al- 
legiance in word and gesture, and the sight of 
Old Glory floating out above it all, under the blue 
of the open sky. 

But that was not all. A series of patriotic 
tableaux followed, enacted by the camps jointly. 
The first represented Betsy Ross leaning over a 
balcony and presenting the flag to General Wash- 
ington, who was stationed below mounted on a 
fine steed, with his aide by his side. The next 
began with the entrance of "Paul Revere," who 
dashed by on a spirited steed with a shout that 
the British were coming. Another, representing 
the "Spirit of 76," with men, women and children 
in the procession, ended the morning program. 

In the afternoon. Camps A and B were enter- 
tained by the third camp of the group. Camp C, 
about two miles away. The program consisted 
of a lovely pageant, representing the wakening of 



102 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

America at the call of her sister countries, given 
in a romantic setting of green lawn with a line of 
mountains in the background. Outside visitors 
were admitted, and a generous offering was made 
for the Red Cross. After the pageant and a bas- 
ket-ball game between Camps A and C — no camp 
program is ever complete without sports — they all 
made merry through the evening with supper, 
songs, and games in the light of a prodigious 
bonfire. 

Intercamp celebrations have been held each 
year in this region, sometimes with ten camps 
uniting. In the summer of 1916, even before we 
entered the war, a stirring patriotic celebration 
was held, when ranks of campers in blues, 
browns, and greens, nearly a thousand strong, 
marched side by side under the shadow of a great 
mountain — a part of the program of the annual 
Intercamp Frolic. What the celebration will be 
in 1918, you can imagine for yourself. 

Although patriotic demonstrations make their 
appeal to the campers, there are more practical 
expressions that have a bigger place in camp 
life. Last year a great deal of honest effort went 
into the camp gardens. What came out of them, 
we are not exactly prepared to say: but since the 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 103 

seasons in New England are extremely short and 
the campers leave early, perhaps the good coun- 
try-people who stay on after the campers have 
scattered to all parts of the country could tell us 
more about harvesting the crops. For the rest, 
we have but to turn to the various camp periodi- 
cals to find spicy allusions to the war-gardens and 
the well-meaning efforts of the workers. One 
tells of a camp girl who was visiting her brother's 
camp, and, being shown through the garden, be- 
came suddenly interested in one of the plants. 
''Oh ! " she exclaimed, pulling off a stalk, "what is 
this plant?'' Her brother's answer — he was a 
younger brother — was brief, and his tone some- 
what withering. The answer was ''potato." 

Another tells of a set of determined camp girls 
who tackled a rocky field on a barren New Eng- 
land farm, although everybody told them the sea- 
son was too far advanced for planting. The 
rocks certainly were baffling and farm help well 
nigh impossible, but the girls set out to remove 
them themselves. This aroused the sympathy of 
a man in the neighborhood, and he offered his 
help. They cleared a little space, and succeeded 
in setting out what proved to be a very fair gar- 
den. With the aid of an expert in transplanting 



104 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

they had the satisfaction of eating their own vege- 
tables before the end of the season. Their own 
account of it, however, is not strictly in accord- 
ance with the facts, but rather shows that, as 
camp girls always manage to do, they had a good 
time out of it. It runs in a song, set to the tune 
of "That's a Peculiar Thing": 

I planted a radish in my garden, 

And reg'larly every morn, 

I got up sharp at five o'clock, 

To water it 'fore the dawn. 

I raked and weeded and spaded and hoed, 

Though told to let it alone, 

But, after weeks of labor spent. 

All that came up was a stone. 

Chorus 

Now that 's a peculiar thing. 

Now that 's a peculiar thing. 

I planted a radish, I planted a bean, 

But neither of these has ever been seen. 

Now that 's a peculiar thing, 

Now that 's a peculiar thing, 

If any one here does n't hear what I say, 

I say it 's a peculiar thing. 

The most popular war activity in all the camps, 
as it is at home and school, was the Red Cross 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 105 

knitting. The gardening had its regular hours, 
but knitting went on all day. Like Mary's lamb, 
it went everywhere the campers went. It occu- 
pied morning assembly and crafts-hour; it went 
to the ball games and held the side-lines; and 
even at competitive water-sports it was found on 
the shore-line or in the waiting canoes. One girl 
became so absorbed in knitting a sweater that she 
walked off the edge of the pier with her knitting 
in her hand, and, as the story goes, the dropped 
stitches had to be picked up by a diver from the 
bottom of the lake. At the end of the summer a 
good supply of comfort sets was turned in to the 
Red Cross from the summer camps. 

Work in the line of Red Cross bandages, com- 
presses, and dressings was done also in many of 
the camps under the direction of a Red Cross 
nurse. First-aid courses were given, and proved 
very popular. All of this was optional, but, in 
the camp atmosphere, made a special appeal, and 
many a girl learned bandaging or treatment of 
fractures and worked for hours on compresses 
who would never have thought of such a thing 
at home. 

In first-aid work, the camp girls learn not only 
the first principles of treating fractures, burns, 



106 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

and simple wounds, but above everything they 
are taught to keep their heads and remain cool in 
an emergency. Instead of flying around and 
shrieking hysterically, "Oh; did you see the awful 
gash on Dorothy's foot?" she is expected quietly 
to set about binding it up and keeping others from 
exciting Dorothy. One camp has an interesting 
way of testing this kind of head-work. By a 
seemingly strange coincidence a series of acci- 
dents occur on the same day. Some one appears 
to be in danger of drowning, and the life-savers 
rush out to her rescue. They apply restoratives, 
and no sooner is she made comfortable than some 
one is reported to have fainted. Another, later in 
the day, meets with a rusty nail; and so on 
throughout the day, until it finally dawns upon 
the campers that it is all a "put-up job" to test 
them and to give them an opportunity to put into 
practice methods they have been learning. 

Even the hikes last year had a patriotic turn. 
Parties camping out overnight tried to aid in food 
conservation by picking berries in the early morn- 
ing, which they brought home to be preserved out 
of doors under the direction of a domestic science 
councilor. Many, especially among the older 
girls, were interested also in canteen cooking and 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 107 

lessons in food values. In fact, there was 
scarcely any kind of work in which a girl might 
want to engage that the camps did not offer. Not 
all, to be sure, offered the same things, but the girl 
who wanted to be of service was sure to find 
something that appealed especially to her. Some 
of the larger camps also gave training in running 
automobiles and motor-boats as a preparation for 
war emergencies, and signaling and wigwagging 
proved interesting to the girls in a chain of camps 
lying near enough together to permit signaling to 
each other from the high hills between. 

Thrift, we are told, will win the war. Judg- 
ing from some of the camp periodicals, however, 
^'Hooverizing" made a stronger appeal to a hun- 
gry camper than doing without candy. Some, 
too, had original ways of raising money for re- 
lief work. This advertisement appeared in one 
of the camp papers : 



HANYE 

The Famous Oriental Palmist will tell you 

everything about your life 

ONLY IOC. 

For the benefit of the Red Cross 

Hours: — 5.00 and after supper till dark. 



108 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Another advertises shampooing under the head- 
ing, ''Why Kill Your Tent-Mate?" 

The effort to raise funds has gone on and on, 
by means of self-denial, entertainments by groups 
of girls, and in many other ways. One camp, 
which has adopted three French orphans besides 
making generous contributions to the Red Cross 
and American Relief Fund, talks of adopting a 
whole French village. And now a beautiful plan 
has been set forth by the New York Section of 
the National Camp Directors' Association by 
which every camp girl can have a part in sending 
to the girls of France not clothing nor food, how- 
ever important these may be, but something that 
no one else, perhaps, had thought about before. 
Through the camp girls of America the girls of 
camp age in France are to have what the sad ex- 
perience of the past few years has taken from 
them — the chance to play. 

Thus they will be able to share the spirit that 
characterizes our camp girls everywhere — the 
spirit of play and of laughter and of making the 
best of every situation, so that these girls may 
carry to their newly restored homes the kind of 
good cheer that American girls are bringing into 
theirs in these trying times. 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 109 

The plan is set forth in the following letter 
which went out last fall to all the girls through 
their camp leaders : 

To Camp Girls, Councilors, and Friends: 

There is a girl in France of precisely your age, not 
many miles from Paris, who, until a few weeks ago, 
had not played a game in three years. 

She would like to exchange places with you at your 
summer camp next year. Are you willing to exchange 
places with her? 

This girl is playing games now. She is playing be- 
cause seventeen young women, nearly all of whom are 
graduates of Smith College, heard of her. Her sad 
plight touched not only the purses, but also the hearts 
of these seventeen young women, and they decided to 
give up the comforts of their American homes to go abroad 
and help the little French girl and scores of her sisters. 
These seventeen young women are now living in the 
stable of a ruined chateau, which by their own labor 
they have made fit for habitation. Among the group are 
nurses, a social worker, a doctor, a kindergartener, and a 
cobbler, all of whom speak French. They procure and 
furnish supplies for housekeeping and farming. They 
are getting the people together for social life, and re- 
cently arranged for the first service held since 1914. 

A unit of Wellesley graduates will leave America very 
soon to bring renewed hope, life, and joy to a second 
group of French villages. Would you like to join this 
Wellesley unit? Since you are an American girl with 



no SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

red blood in your veins and with camping experience, of 
course you would; yet at the present time there is some- 
thing more suitable for you to do. Will you, therefore, 
be one of the members of your camp to cooperate with 
several hundred members of other camps in sending a 
proxy to France with this Wellesley unit to do work for 
you? This proxy is a young woman, specially fitted for 
the work, who will act in the nature of a "councilor" to 
French girls. She will send you definite word while your 
camp is in session next summer, so that you may hear of 
the work she is doing in a particular village for a special 
girl. Every penny that you give will be devoted directly 
to the support of your representative. 

. . . The girls' camps in America will join in a friendly 
rivalry to see which one will contribute the greatest sum 
per capita. Here, then, is an opportunity for you to show 
not only your camp spirit, but likewise your patriotism to 
our country and your desire to do a piece of constructive 
work in the present war. 

The response to this appeal from the camp di- 
rectors was generous and fine and was but one 
more expression of the patriotism, the spirit of 
service, and devotion to the needs of humanity 
to be found in the summer camps. 

A little camp girl in New Hampshire heard 
some one remark that the world war would prob- 
ably bring the end of the world, and she ex- 



WAR TIMES IN CAMPS 111 

claimed indignantly: ^'Well! I think it's a 
mighty poor ending.'' 

The campers all agree with you, Betty, but 
never fear! The end is not yet, and so long as 
there are such loyal, patriotic souls as the girl 
campers of this land, we can still hope to live to 
see the dawn of a lasting peace. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 

ONE day in the summer of 1917, a girl of 
seventeen was sitting on a cottage porch 
on the coast of Maine watching the 
bathers down at the shore. Few swimmers were 
out at that hour, but by and by three girls in 
stylish bathing-suits came dancing out from a 
near-by cottage and ventured forth into the surf. 

The girl on the porch watched them with great 
interest, for she herself was a camp girl, and at 
that moment wore on her sweater a big gold letter 
that told of honors won in water sports. So, as 
she sat there waiting for a friend, her eyes fol- 
lowed the girl swimmers till they were well out 
beyond the breakers. 

Then something peculiar happened. One of 
the girls disappeared, and the others went after 
her. Soon they were beyond their depth and be- 
came frightened. One gave a cry for help. In- 
stantly two men appeared, and put off from the 

112 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 113 

shore toward the spot where the girls were now 
struggling. And while one went on in search of 
the missing girl, the other came rapidly back, tow- 
ing the other two, and brought them safely to 
shore. But the other man. The camp girl stood 
up to watch. What was the matter out there? 
Something was wrong. All of a sudden she saw 
him throw up his hands in a signal of distress. 
The man on shore returned quickly to his rescue. 
The camp girl saw them start back, and then 
something made her heart come up into her 
throat. The rescuer was lagging. He was 
plainly becoming exhausted, and the first man 
was unconscious. 

Now this young swimmer, who had won the 
laurels of her camp, lost no time in deciding what 
to do. In an instant she had reached the shore, 
cast off skirt and shoes, and with a few long, 
skilful strokes, alternated with easy breathing, 
reached the scene of peril. Then transferring 
the heavy, unconscious subject to her own grasp, 
she began, by a method practised many times at 
swimming-hour and demonstrated before the 
camp, to tow him back to shore, leaving the ex- 
hausted man free to struggle back to safety. 

The missing girl was never found, but the 



114 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

drowning man was saved. One life-saver had 
made good. A camp girl had proved that she 
knew what to do, that she could keep her head, 
and that she could be counted on in an emergency. 
Could you have done as much ? 

When this girl came back to camp for the clos- 
ing week, there was a big surprise for her at the 
end. Amid the toasts and songs at the final ban- 
quet, a loving-cup was brought in, inscribed with 
the facts and date of the rescue, and presented to 
her as a token of recognition from all the girls. 

Perhaps that was one reason for the action of 
the girls of that camp in starting a life-saving 
club. They wanted to reach out beyond the mere 
working for their own records on a chart in swim- 
ming and life-saving. Then, too, they recog- 
nized that, in learning to safeguard human life, 
they might be able to render service to their coun- 
try in time of war as valuable as that of the Red 
Cross and the Land Army. It could well be 
called a war activity, but nevertheless it was or- 
ganized on a permanent basis, so that the girls of 
this summer and the next and the next may be- 
long to it, though the war is over. Perhaps you 
would like to hear about it. 

In the first place, the more advanced swimmers 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 115 

of the camp, including the girls of the "life- 
guard" — those girls who had a whole string of 
crosses opposite their names on a chart that hung 
on the wall just inside the door of the bungalow, 
extending over into the columns of the section 
marked "Advanced Class," showing a formidable 
amount of work for improved form on crawl and 
other strokes, diving, life-saving and ornamental 
swimming, — came together near the end of the 
season and drew up the constitution, which was 
modeled somewhat after that of the life-saving 
clubs of the colleges. The club was to be man- 
aged by the girls themselves, with their own offi- 
cers, and every girl in camp would be eligible for 
membership, provided she could pass the tests. 
Those who qualified in 1918 would be charter 
members. 

Now constitutions usually deal, first of all, 
with the objects of the organization, and this one 
had five. The first was, to safeguard life in the 
waters in the vicinity of the camp by developing 
sentiment and facilities toward this end. 

Perhaps this sounds very ambitious for a group 
of girls in their 'teens, but had it not been proved 
already what a girl can do if she is only ready? 
Of course, for the campers themselves there was 



116 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

no special need of safeguarding. Not only does 
the camp take care that the swimmers are at all 
times surrounded with safeguards, but in the best 
camps each girl, as she learns to swim, is taught 
to take care of herself and then of others, in the 
water. The result is very gratifying, for in all 
the history of girls' camps, covering a period of 
nearly twenty years, there has never been reported 
a drowning accident. 

But in the vicinity of that camp there are sev- 
eral lakes and a wide river which afford fishing- 
grounds for the countryside. Men go fishing in 
big flat-bottomed boats, and few of them know 
how to swim. The country girl is afraid of the 
water, having no opportunity to learn how to 
swim, and seldom knows how to handle a boat. 
So every now and then a drowning accident oc- 
curs, usually in the current of the river. Would 
it not be a fine thing for a camp to help to over- 
come these conditions in their own countryside? 

The second object is to prevent drowning by 
the following methods: 

A. By teaching precautions that should be ob- 
served in swimming and boat-handling. In 
camps where water sports are well developed, the 
girls are taught to right an overturned canoe; to 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 117 

go out into deep water, jump overboard and get 
in again ; to tow in to shore an overturned canoe ; 
to empty one after capsizing, within a given time. 
The highest record for the latter is said to belong 
to the camp in Maine which is the home of the 
Camp Fire Girls' movement. 

B. By holding swimming and life-saving ex- 
hibitions — an excellent way to stimulate interest. 

C. Promoting swimming and life-saving com- 
petitions. 

D. By giving instruction in the various meth- 
ods of performing artificial respiration. The 
method most approved by the camps is the Schaef- 
fer method, which requires only one person to 
apply it. But it is well to know others also. 

The third object is to rescue those in peril of 
drowning. 

Last summer, near a summer camp, an acci- 
dent occurred which might have been avoided had 
any member of such a club as this been near at 
hand. A man was allowed to drown in the river, 
a few miles away, only because there was no one 
at hand who knew how to swim. The neighbors 
tried to get into communication with the camp, 
but it was more than an hour before any one 
could reach the spot. Had an onlooker had the 



118 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

knowledge of swimming of a fifteen-year-old 
camp girl, the man might have been saved. 

The fourth object is to resuscitate persons ap- 
parently drowned. 

This camp was asked a few years ago to join 
with a near-by hotel in the purchase of a lung- 
motor to have on hand in case of an accident. 
But the swimming master, while not discouraging 
the project for the hotel, felt that, as far as the 
camp girls were concerned, they would be far 
better equipped in case of emergency if they could 
use the Schaeffer method of resuscitation which 
was taught them. 

The fifth and last object is to study and con- 
duct research work on the most modern and scien- 
tific strokes and methods of rescue, in an en- 
deavor to lift swimming to its very highest stand- 
ard of efficiency and enjoyment. 

You will agree with me that these are no mean 
standards for a club, and if they sound a trifle 
ambitious for camp girls, then they are so much 
more worth while striving for. The girls who 
belong to this club are not satisfied with medals 
than can be won too easily because the standards 
are adapted to the greatest number. And if these 
standards are too easy to require effort, then they 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 119 

are willing to make more difficult ones of their 
own. 

So much for the objects of the club. The next 
thing in the constitution is membership. As we 
said above, any camper who can pass the tests is 
eligible for membership. What are the tests? 
Well, here they are, though we submit them with 
the explanation that they were made up by a 
committee and are subject to revision. 

There are three sets of tests for three distinct 
classes of members. The first class are called 
Junior Life-savers, and any girl, after the ma- 
jority vote of approval of the club members, may 
become a Junior Life-saver by passing the fol- 
lowing : 

A. Swim 200 yards without becoming ex- 
hausted, i.e., 100 yards on back, using legs only, 
and 1 00 yards using single over-arm, double over- 
arm, or crawl stroke, with correct breathing. 

Now I can hear some one say, ^'That 's easy. 
I can do all those strokes." No doubt. You 
can do the back strokes and the crawl. But what 
about the breathing? Can you execute the crawl 
stroke, inhaling and exhaling at the proper inter- 
vals and with relaxed muscles? For that is the 
test in this life-saving club. 



120 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

B. Plunge or dive from landing and swim ten 
yards well under water — eyes open. 

C. Surface dive in six feet of water, bringing 
up human subject in first position of carry — that 
is, in a good position to be towed ashore, which 
the life-saver has already been taught. 

D. Swim fifty yards in camp costume, undress 
in deep water, and swim fifty yards. 

E. Use the following carries — or methods of 
towing a drowning person — each twenty-five 
yards (the life-saver has been taught all this as 
part of her swimming instruction) : 

(1) Tired-swimmer's carry. 

(2) Side-stroke carry, without submerging 

the subject's head. 

(3) Struggling-person's carry. 

F. Execute the following releases — this means 
methods of breaking away from the grasp of a 
struggling person whom you are trying to rescue: 

(1) Wrist-hold. 

(2) Front strangle-hold. 

(3) Back strangle-hold. 

G. Resuscitation. Execute the Schaeffer 
method effectively for at least five minutes. 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 121 

These are the tests for a Junior Life-saver. 
But when a girl has met all these requirements 
successfully, the club does not then pronounce 
her a life-saver. She is merely a junior, which 
means that she is learning to be a life-saver, and 
that she has climbed a few rounds of the ladder 
and is ready to go on. The next thing is to be- 
come a Senior Life-saver, and the next clause in 
the constitution says that a Junior Life-saver is 
qualified to become a Senior Life-saver by passing 
the following: 

A. Swim 440 yards, using single over- 
arm, double over-arm, or crawl, with correct 
breathing. 

B. Carry a person seventy-five yards, using 
three typical carries, each twenty-five yards. 

C. Releases. Execute three typical breaks as, 
for example, the wrist- and strangle-holds of a 
drowning person mentioned above, three times in 
rapid succession on some one your superior in 
weight and strength. 

D. Give written, answers to five questions on 
after-treatment of resuscitated persons and on 
any other phase of life-saving — passing mark 
75%. 

Perhaps you would be interested to have some 



122 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

typical questions which might be asked. Take 
this one, for example: 

"What directions would you give to two inex- 
perienced persons, who happened to be the only 
ones on shore, when you had just effected a suc- 
cessful rescue of one unconscious subject, and 
needed to return in haste to the other subject, 
who was clinging to an upturned boat far out 
from shore?" 

Another one: "Give procedure after natural 
respiration has been restored." 

Or this: "Explain in detail how one would 
approach and seize a person struggling in the 
water." 

Now there is just one more round of the ladder. 
After a girl has demonstrated these points in 
swimming and rescuing and has been admitted to 
the rank of a Senior Life-saver, she is supposed 
to be capable of meeting any sort of emergency 
in the water and proving herself valuable in case 
of need. But one thing remains, and that is to 
do it. And that is the one and only qualification 
for the next class of membership. This is what 
the constitution says: 

"Any member of Camp Life-saving 

Club is entitled to become a Master Life-saver 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 123 

after saving some one in peril of drowning.'' 

You may be sure that this club, organized by 
the girls of one camp, is proud to have one mem- 
ber who has qualified as a Master Life-saver. 
And as the girls grow older and pass out into the 
world, who knows when an emergency may add 
another? 

In place of a president the club has a captain 
for the presiding officer. It has also a secretary- 
treasurer and a sub-captain, each elected in mid- 
summer for a term of one year. The captain, an 
experienced girl, besides presiding at meetings 
and supervising the work of the club, is author- 
ized to pass on candidates' tests, in the absence of 
a more experienced life-saver or swimming in- 
structor, and it is her duty to organize and train 
the members of the club for active duty. 

The uniform adopted by the charter members 
consists of a one-piece bathing-suit in the stand- 
ard colors of the camp, with a special club em- 
blem. 

During the summer a daily drill, in breaks and 
other forms, is to be conducted by the captain for 
all the members. As one of the club's activities, 
a morning was spent in experimenting with all 
the known methods of towing and carryinor a per- 



124 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

son in the water, each member choosing, among 
the approved methods, those that were best 
adapted to her and to a given set of circumstances. 
This proved valuable in requiring a girl to think 
for herself and to understand thoroughly the rea- 
son for each thing she did. 

This is the record of the work of only a single 
camp. To-day, hundreds of camps are doing 
splendid work in teaching boys and girls to swim, 
to keep their heads, and to feel at home in the 
water. A great many also are conducting drills 
in life-saving, and a great many more will in the 
future. There are big opportunities for the boys 
and girls of the camps for usefulness in a land 
where only too few know how to swim. 

Although life-saving means serious business, 
there is a good story told in this camp about one 
girl who took things perhaps too seriously. She 
was a rather timid girl, and she had been dream- 
ing about life-saving. One morning she was 
awakened about dawn by a low, steady cry which 
seemed to come from the lake. She lay rigid for 
a moment, and then heard it again. It was a 
man's voice. Jumping up, she flew to the tent 
of the camp leader, who was still sleeping. 
"Miss Wood!" she gasped, "wake up, a man is 



ARE YOU A LIFE SAVER? 125 

drowning in the lake and calling for help!" 
Just then another cry broke the stillness. ^'Lis- 
ten!" she urged; ''he's getting desperate now!" 
Miss Wood sprang up and listened. What she 
heard was '^Co-o-o-o boss, co-o-o-o boss, co-o-o-o 
boss ! " and it came from the opposite shore, where 
a farmer was calling his cow. 

Not long ago, on the page devoted to sports in 
the ''New York Times," an announcement was 
made that a committee was being formed to work 
out a plan for uniting the forces of the Red Cross, 
the Y. M. C. A. and the Intercollegiate Athletic 
Association for a nation-wide movement for the 
universal teaching of swimming and life-saving. 
It was said to be a campaign to encourage mass 
instruction in swimming and life-saving. This 
mass instruction has proved so successful among 
the sailors that it may be adopted in schools also. 

During the past few years the Swimming Com- 
mittee of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association 
has made great strides toward standardizing 
swimming in the colleges. It has produced a 
"Swimming Guide," and has gone a long way 
toward eliminating from the water-sports compe- 
titions of the colleges feats or "stunts" that con- 
tain an element of danger, — as, for example, div- 



126 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

ing from high towers or executing dives that are 
dangerous to the ear-drum, as the side or cork- 
screw dives, — and are therefore not to be recog- 
nized by good sportsmen. 

It is said to be the pl^n of this committee to do 
further standardization — to adopt new rules to 
govern swimming and life-saving contests in the 
schools. By combining the forces of these three 
strong organizations, we may hope for great re- 
sults in stimulating the whole country to the need 
and importance of having all children learn to 
swim. The war has stimulated many good 
things, and this is not the least. 

In the colleges great interest has been manifest 
for some time. They have their water-polo and 
their life-saving clubs. The Y. M. C. A., too, 
with its fine pools, has made a great feature of 
swimming. All pulling together, much can be 
done. And let them not forget the campers. 



CHAPTER IX 

OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 

"Do you believe, oh, cityites, 
With all your clothes and fuss, 
That you can have as good a time 
As any one of us?" 

From a camp song book. 

' T^UT what do you find to do all day long?" 
1—^ asks the troubled parent. *'What do you 
JL^J do when it rains?" The latter in a final, 
semi-hopeless tone. 

As a matter of fact, the daily schedule might 
well answer these questions, but it may be as well 
also to let in a little light upon some of the things 
that go on in a girls' camp that do not belong 
in the schedule, and are never set forth in cata- 
logs, but that break into the routine from time to 
time and give a thrill to an ordinary day. 

The very first week brings a Fourth of July 
celebration, described in another chapter. Fol- 
lowing close upon this is the initiation party for 

127 



128 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

the new girls, which varies in form in different 
camps. The one we are about to describe fol- 
lows somewhat wild traditions, and is looked for- 
ward to with mingled feelings by the new girls. 

The affair is announced at supper time by the 
old girls, as follows: ''All new girls come to the 
bungalow at seven-thirty with hair done in thir- 
teen pigtails and middies worn backwards!" 
Which announcement is followed by suppressed 
groans and an exchange of glances between tent 
mates. 

Let us follow the little dark-eyed new girl from 
Ohio, who has had little to say, but has been tak- 
ing in everything. Her eyes are dancing and she 
gives her tent mate from home a vigorous punch 
under the table. After supper they make straight 
for their tent and proceed (with much giggling 
and suppressed excitement) to carry out instruc- 
tions. At seven-thirty they turn up at the bunga- 
low door looking properly demure, and are ad- 
mitted somewhat grudgingly through a crack in 
the door by a forbidding-looking individual in 
masculine attire wearing a mask. 

The room is darkened, and by the faint light 
from a lantern or two they are ushered to one 
side of the room, where one or two of the vie- 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 129 

tims, entirely unrecognizable in the strange dis- 
guise, are already seated. Directly opposite is an 
array of strange-looking beings in all sorts of dis- 
guises — mostly queer varieties of ghosts — who 
are, in camp life, known as ''old girls," and who 
are trying to heighten the weird effect of the sur- 
roundings by loud "Sh — s" and deep-throated 
groans from time to time. These are empha- 
sized, when, every minute or two the door is 
opened, admitting a little light and one or two 
misguided individuals in the backward costume. 
The solemnity of the occasion would be really ef- 
fective, were it not disturbed every now and then 
by a fit of giggling — sometimes, but not always — 
from the row in pigtails. 

When the last one has been ushered in through 
the crack, and all accounted for, a few grown-ups 
slide in and take seats in the corner and the cere- 
monies begin. The presiding officer, a pompous 
figure in a ghost costume, is seated in Arab fash- 
ion on a high table, flanked by three or four other 
cross-legged ghosts who help to support his dig- 
nity by means of impressive chants and groans. 

His Majesty then proceeds to read off the pig- 
tails by name, and as they are called forward, he 
challenges them, after a rather arbitrary cross- 



130 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

examination, to perform some kind of stunt. 
When the girl from Ohio is called, her chum is 
called with her, but they are both so ^'full of 
laugh" which no efforts will repress, that they are 
reprimanded for levity. When the Great Mogul 
orders them to sing a duet, consisting of two dif- 
ferent camp songs in different keys, they are over- 
come once more. They are ordered to try it 
again, and finally succeed in going through one 
line, and are excused. 

The rest of the Order of the Pigtails are called 
by ones and twos to perform various feats. One 
big girl who cannot swim at all is ordered to bal- 
ance herself on the piano stool, face downward, 
and demonstrate the various strokes. Another 
has to feed her tent mate from a dish of dry cereal, 
both blindfolded. Councilors are not spared, 
for the nurse has to make up a cot with hospital 
corners and the athletic councilor is asked to give 
an exhibition of the setting-up drill. 

When the last name has been called, the lights 
are turned up brightly, the song leader takes her 
place at the piano, and while the crowd on one 
side of the room join loudly in singing 

"Where, oh where is Mary Brown" 
Safe now in Camp" 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 131 

to each new girl by name, she is transferred to the 
"old girl" side of the room, and all seated to- 
gether, they wind up with 

"Where, oh where are the campers 

Safe now at camp." 

Then with a rush, at the first strains of the 
piano, each old girl takes a new one for a part- 
ner, and the dancing begins, which ends only 
when the bugle calls for bed time. 

However, this is not the end of it. The party 
is returned with interest within a day or two by 
the new girls, and neither girl nor councilor is 
spared when it comes to the stunts. And in the 
end, it is hard to say which crowd gave the better 
entertainment. 

Not all initiation parties are on this order. 
One camp has a beautiful lantern ceremony as a 
welcome to the new girls, which is a part of the 
traditions of the camp. The new girls meet 
around a big, unlighted campfire out in the field, 
just as the twilight darkens. Then comes a faint 
sound of singing and the fire is lighted, sending 
a huge blaze and a shower of sparks into the dark 
blue sky, as the old campers come marching and 
singing down the field, with swaying lighted Ian- 



132 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

terns on their shoulders. After marching around 
the camp fire they sing to the new girls: 

"New girls, we welcome you gladly 

To share with us all in our camp and her charms. 
Come, join with us in our family. 

Camp opens her welcome arms." 

Then each old girl gives to a new girl an un- 
lighted lantern, which the camp leader, after some 
words of welcome, lights from the campfire, and 
all join in the first ''camp sing" of the season. 

In another camp, in place of the customary 
initiation party, this entertainment was given to 
the new girls by the old ones: 

The girls were invited into the assembly hall 
which was decorated for the occasion, and softly 
lighted. A-t the end of the hall, in the midst of 
a woodland scene stood a huge cauldron of Camp- 
Magic Water set over burning coals and tended 
by two shrouded wizards. The Queen of the 
Fairies danced in with her attendants, and with 
her wand summoned a long procession of queer 
individuals from the rear. One by one they were 
seized by the merciless wizards, and hurled into 
the seething water and mashed to a pulp; then 
pulled out again, strangely transformed. The 
thin girl grew surprisingly fat; the Fluffy Ruffles 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 133 

came out in middie and bloomers; the latest 
Vogue bathing creation became a commonsense 
bathing suit ; the waitresses all merged into a tray 
of dishes; the noisy girls into a dozen tennis 
racquets. A bit of humor was furnished at the 
end by putting in the dog who came out a string 
of sausage. 

Then the Queen summoned all the new girls 
before the stage, where they knelt, while one of 
their number asked the fairy for the spirit of the 
camp. She granted the request, and at a mo- 
tion from the wand, the Spirit rose from the caul- 
dron. Then they all sang their joy at receiving 
the greatest of all gifts from the camp. 

After the Fourth of July celebration and the 
initiation party, when the new girl is beginning 
to get used to the schedule, the next thing is a 
masquerade. Any camp girl will tell you this 
is great fun, especially when you have to get 
up a costume with nothing to draw on except 
your bedding and the contents of a little steamer 
trunk. 

Let us look in upon a campers' masquerade. 
It is seven-thirty. There has been a wild flurry 
of preparations, and now draped figures in sheets 
and kimonas, go slipping stealthily up the path. 



134 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

and are admitted through the bungalow door. 
At a signal, the ball room opens. The formerly 
bare bungalow is now transformed into a fairy- 
land, aglow with Japanese lanterns, and the ef- 
fect is quite dazzling. Under the soft light a 
most remarkable crowd is assembled — a crowd 
of strange folk from every land — Hawaiian, Chi- 
nese, Indian, Gypsies, Spanish ladies, man and 
maid, young and old, all dancing away together, 
in a beautiful medley of color in a merry whirl. 
As they brush by to the strains of the music, let 
us get a closer look at this crowd. Here goes a 
sailor with one tooth and a tattooed emblem on 
his arm; over there are some pirates screwing 
their faces in an effort to look fierce; come 
Pierrettes and Pierrots dancing with oriental 
ladies; Dutch boys and girls; Boy Scouts; Peter 
Pans; clowns; babes in rompers with lolly-pops 
to keep them amused; the Spearmint man who 
looks "good enough to chew"; and swept along 
with the moving crowd Charlie Chaplin with his 
flattened derby, waving his whisk-broom and 
waving his cane to the music. How did they do 
it? Ask any camp girl. 

It is the same way with a circus. One of the 
most successful that I can recall was gotten up in 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 135 

about an hour, although it sometimes occupies a 
whole rainy day. This one came about through 
a sudden inspiration at the supper table. There 
was a hasty pinning of blankets, diving into 
trunks, and borrowing from neighboring tents, 
and within an hour, behold, the circus was ready ! 
Now this was a circus, as one camp girl says, 
whose equal Barnum & Bailey, Ringling Broth- 
ers, and Buffalo Bill, in their greatest moments, 
never put on. First came the animals; leading 
the procession was a giraffe, of wonderful pro- 
portions, which, if the truth be known, was made 
of figured blankets combined with a tall and a 
short girl. Treading along behind him, in typi- 
cal clumsy fashion was an elephant, externally 
made of blankets and internally — we promised 
not to tell. His broad back was ornamented with 
a howda made of an oriental middy tie. Behind 
him crawled a pair of seals who flopped their 
tails to "tell the lady's age," their propelling 
power fully covered by rubber blankets tied at 
each end. These all, together with other animals, 
pranced around the hall, followed and teased by 
two tumbling clowns. After the parade the ring- 
master came out into the center, pompous in a 
riding suit and a high hat, and cracking his busi- 



136 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

nesslike whip, and put the performers through 
the events of the evening. An event of great style 
was a trapeze performance by a dazzling lady in 
a ballet costume of sheer mosquito netting and 
pink tissue paper who did her stunt in a man- 
ner that would wring tears from a gravestone. 
As she bowed to the wild applause, she was dis- 
covered to be the trained nurse. 

One thing more is a stunt party. One morn- 
ing the campers wake up to the patter of a steady 
rain — one of those downpours that last all day. 
After breakfast the clouds lift, and then darken 
again, and the rain sets in for good. A few 
campers get their heads together and a stunt party 
is announced. A stunt party is like vaudeville; 
you not only have to get your costumes, you act 
the part. All day long there are secret meet- 
ings in the tents, planning the stunts while in be- 
tween are the regular activities, — swimming and 
crafts. A rainy day, by the way, is a lark in 
camp. Put on your waterproof, for instance, and 
go to walk in the rain. And swimming! Feel 
how warm the water is, and how good it feels to 
have the rain pattering down on your face. In- 
side is the log fire, inviting you to write letters 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 137 

and read aloud, with dancing for exercise and 
altogether it is a rare chance to sit still and enjoy 
yourself. 

Then comes the evening with the stunts, which 
may be anything you like. 

All day girls have been getting together by 
twos, threes or fours and sometimes more, to plan 
the stunt and contrive the costume. The result 
outrivals the latest hit of Broadway. Here, for 
example, comes a Mary Pickford scene from the 
movies; next is an Egyptian dance; a perform- 
ance by stiff -jointed dolls of the different nations; 
the Mad Cook scene from "Alice in Wonder- 
land"; and last on the program is a stunt that 
shows the greatest ingenuity in the matter of cos- 
tuming, for every one of the five costumes is made 
entirely of middle ties. The stunt is a presenta- 
tion of the song, "And along comes another little 
girl." They are introduced by a grave looking 
manager in a man's costume. First comes the 
Hawaiian girl, in a garment of purple, completed 
by an overskirt made of yellow raffia from the 
craft room. Then the Spanish lady, in a marvel- 
ous gown of yellow and red, fashioned cleverly 
from half a dozen squares of these colors. Next 



138 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

is the Irish lass, who has managed to find enough 
of these ties in the emerald hue to furnish an ef- 
fective though somewhat scant frock. And so 
with the Italian and the American girl, and as 
they all join together in an original dance, they 
show the same cleverness in the performance as 
in the costuming. 

The middie tie in camp serves a great many 
uses, and is second only to the camper's blanket 
and mosquito netting, in getting ready for a 
show. One councilor who happened to have a 
tie with a Turkish design counted twenty different 
purposes for which it had been loaned for dra- 
matics, from the howda for an elephant to a table 
cover in a society drawing-room. 

In the same way skirts are made into fetching 
capes for the men in a Colonial dance; petticoats 
serve as shirts, scarfs or sashes; and mosquito 
netting makes either a ruff for Pierrette or a 
bridal veil. 

To quote from a poem that appeared a few 
years ago in the Log of a camp in Vermont : 

"A string of beads and a crimson feather 
And several blankets sewed together 
Transform one beyond all belief 
Into the fiercest Injun chief. 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 139 

A ruffle or two, and a pin or two 

Layers of black upon their skins 

A dish pan, duster or a broom 

And we have the fetching Gold Dust Twins. 

In ribbons, sashes, cloaks and caps, 
Of every kind, we are arrayed. 
It takes but little to produce 
Most any kind of man or maid. 

We 've learned by much experience 

That we can get most anywhere 

With a needle and thread and a little skill 

And a rag and a bone and a hank of hair." 

Visitors and parents are always filled with 
wonder and admiration at such resourcefulness, 
while the girls are unconscious of having 
achieved anything unusual. In the same way 
they give original plays and moving picture sce- 
narios, many of which are quite as creditable as 
their costumes. The councilors enter into the 
dramatics and add their college experience, some- 
times by giving a play or a minstrel of their 
own. 

Before leaving the subject of camp dramatics, 
let us not forget the evenings of good old-fash- 
ioned charades, that bring out all sorts of unsus- 



140 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

pected talent by their very impromptuness and 
the stirring element of competition. 

Several years ago, in one of the older White 
Mountain camps of the Vermont-New Hampshire 
region, the leader one evening during supper rose 
and threw out this challenge: ''The even tables 
will please prepare for charades, to be given in 
the Recreation Hall at seven-thirty. The prize 
for the best table will be a five-pound box of 
marshmallows." A general buzzing followed, 
among the even tables, out of the depth of which 
could be heard plans — but not for charades. 
They were talking about a marshmallow roast! 
The odd tables smiled grimly and said nothing. 
They knew their turn was coming. 

During the next hour, the buzzing was trans- 
ferred to various tents, and the diners at the 
even tables were seen darting here and there, root- 
ing in the depths of trunks and borrowing from 
the neighbors of the odd tables. At seven-thirty 
in the Recreation Hall there was an expectant au- 
dience awaiting the first charade, which was pre- 
sented by Table 11. There were three acts, with 
elaborate costuming, then the whole word. The 
acting was clever, and the audience had a hard 
time guessing the word. Finally some one called 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 141 

out ''Hospitality" and everyone joined in the 
hearty applause. 'Tt was very well done," said 
one of the councilors. The even tables ex- 
changed looks. Marshmallows ! 

When the curtain rose on Table IV, the audi- 
ence had quite a surprise. No one would have 
guessed that they would have hit upon anything 
so clever. As the curtain rose on the first act, 
everyone recognized in the familiar scene a splen- 
did local hit. It was a part of the pageant that 
had monopolized the attention of the whole camp 
for nearly three weeks. There stood two of the 
councilors, one a woman of mature years, look- 
ing strangely helpless and grotesque in a most ab- 
surd costume, leading by the hand a young man 
in equally grotesque garb, with a sheepish and 
downcast look. At the familiar lines, ''And the 
lovely Minnehaha looked more lovely as she stood 
there" — with two absurd raffia braids on each ear, 
and eye glasses upon the bridge of her nose, — 
and "Neither willing nor reluctant, placed her 
hand in Hiawatha's, saying, 'I will follow thee,' " 
the audience broke forth, and became more hilari- 
ous each moment. Table IV then promptly exe- 
cuted the other syllables and ended by rendering 
the word Cadillac in fine style, with real lights. 



142 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

a door that opened and shut, and a real Klaxon. 
Now whose were the marshmallows ? 

Table VI gave them nothing to fear, for the 
word was too simple, the acting too obvious and 
the whole performance lacked originality. So 
Table IV and their friends began to see visions 
of a glowing camp fire in the ravine, long sharp- 
ened sticks, good company and an evening of 
stories. 

But wait for Table VIII. Here was a dark 
horse. They too had a local hit, and one that 
was more dramatic, because . . . well, we shall 
see. It happened this way. During the previous 
act there had slipped quietly into the back of the 
room a delegation from a camp of little boys, 
which we shall call Camp B, who were out for a 
hike and quartered for the night in a barn near 
by. No one else seemed to notice them, so seizing 
the unexpected situation, table VIII quickly 
changed its word, and by means of a class in 
school — the one idea serving for all three acts — 
they missed and erred in the first two syllables 
and were finally able in the last to give the cor- 
rect answer to the teacher. 

"What river divides the United States in half?" 
Missed. 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 143 

'^What ocean is north of us?" Wrong — an 
error. 

^'Where is Camp B?'' 

'Tleath, teacher," said a shy member of the 
class, with light bobbing curls, ''Camp B ith at 
Camp A." 

There was a puzzled moment, followed by a 
rapid turning of heads toward the back of the 
room, where the semi-darkness covered the con- 
fusion of a group of shy little boys huddled to- 
gether in the corner. Then an outburst of ap- 
plause that shattered the confidence of Table IV 
till it fell all in a heap. And to add to the tri- 
umph of Table VIII, no one guessed the word. 

The following day at dinner the even tables 
were pleasantly surprised by the announcement 
that they were invited by Table VIII to a marsh- 
mallow roast at seven-thirty in the ravine. At 
that one of the odd tables, not to be outdone, rose 
to the occasion and announced a marshmallow 
roast for the odd tables down on the Point. The 
camp log says that the Ravine party had marsh- 
mallows and watermelon and stories, while the 
party at the Point had marshmallows, a great deal 
of watermelon, games and an evening not soon to 
be forgotten. 



144 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Evening at camp brings up memories to old 
campers now scattered far and wide, of many a 
group around a campfire. To one it is on the 
top of a high hill, to another down by the shore. 
But in either case the round of stories, the singing 
and the fire-lit faces will always remain in the 
foreground of camp experiences. Others may re- 
member how they used to love to get out on the 
lake in the early evening in a canoe and just do 
nothing but float around in the twilight, now 
close by the dark shore, where the mountains 
seemed to rise right out of the lake, now out in 
the open, watching the color fade from the sky 
and the moon coming up, or the lights beginning 
to twinkle on shore, which latter was a signal that 
it was time to go in. 

It is a popular custom in one camp to hold a 
Sunday evening service out on the lake, with the 
canoes and row-boats grouped around the raft, 
where there is sometimes a visiting speaker and 
always a song leader. The campers love these 
"sings" out on the water in the soft glow of the 
evening sky, and so do the neighbors. Sometimes 
they walk for a mile or two to a place where they 
can watch the moon come up over the distant hills 
and sing to the accompaniment of a guitar. 




Scene from "Every-Camp," a play written and performed by 
campers in a New Hampshire camp 




A tow of canoes on the way to Field Day at a neighboring 



camp 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 145 

These same campers have a tradition for slip- 
ping away in small parties to some romantic spot 
to spend the night without being discovered by the 
rest of the camp. The greatest excitement is 
in dodging curious friends or tent-mates. The 
plans are whispered around, a councilor secured 
and the blankets and food smuggled off into hid- 
ing in the early afternoon, and then the party 
watch their chance to escape. To make a good 
get-away sometimes involves lugging blankets up 
and down or around hills, or dragging canoes off 
to a lonely place, but once out of danger, with sup- 
per over and a good glowing fire there is much 
satisfaction in the feeling that you have ''put it 
over." And after a night under the stars and a 
hasty breakfast, to stroll into camp about time 
for assembly and hear the excited "Where you 
been?" is all very gratifying. So they say. 

In the afternoons there are sometimes crafts, 
swimming, dancing, riding or field sports, but 
other times one is left to find her own amusement. 
If it is hot she likes to get a canoe with a friend, 
fill it with pillows, take books or writing mate- 
rials and find a shady place along shore to spend 
the afternoon. Or, starting somewhere near 
camp, take off shoes and stockings and follow up 



146 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

a brook, wading and stepping from stone to stone 
as far as she can go. Other days when it is cool 
there are more exciting things to be thought of. 
The girl who is city-bred and accustomed to 
asphalt pavements and skimpy back-yards, finds 
a good game of Hare and Hounds a complete 
novelty. Whether she belongs to the fleet band of 
Hares led by the Rabbit-in-chief and goes on 
ahead, leading the hounds on a desperate trail, up 
hill, through bogs, brooks and barbed wire, or 
whether she has to follow their lead for a good 
part of the afternoon, and in the end lands back 
at camp chagrined to find the Hares all sitting 
there waiting, there is a thrill in it from start to 
finish that makes her want to have another one 
soon. 

Most camp girls are not dependent upon their 
councilors for their amusement, but are quite 
capable of furnishing their own. And if any one 
thinks that fastidious city-girl brought up on 
ready-made excitement, like the movies, motor- 
trips and teas, will not fit into the life at camp, 
they should see her come in after being caught 
in the rain, dripping from every seam, and watch 
her thrill of joy when she jumps into the lake 
with all her clothes on; or watch her rigging up 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 147 

a sail out of a rubber blanket, to go out in an 
old tub of a row-boat; or chasing through the 
woods after a runaway fowl. This kind of a life 
is a joy to her because it sets her free to develop 
unused powers, and to give free play to her own 
originality. A part of a camper's creed is, "If 
you don't see anything to do, go out and find 
something." 

To illustrate this a crowd of younger girls in a 
certain camp in New Hampshire found thrilling 
sport one afternoon in connection with a small 
island or point of land out in the middle of the 
lake. This island suggested to their ripe imagi- 
nation Pirates and Hidden Treasure, so they went 
out on a secret expedition, setting forth in an old 
flat bottom row-boat — they were not allowed ca- 
noes — with a poncho hoisted for a sail, and an 
excited crew hanging over the sides in their ef- 
forts to keep it up. They pushed off from shore 
very cautiously, but half way up the lake they 
started up the bold Pirate song, "Ho, Ho, Ho, and 
a bottle of rum." Back on shore a councilor 
was watching them from a tent ; otherwise all was 
well. She saw them land on the shore of the 
island, and look about furtively. Then they be- 
gan digging in the sand. In about an hour they 



148 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

came back, landed carefully, and with an air of 
suppressed excitement. Next day they went out 
again in the same way. The councilor kept it 
to herself. But someone else must have spied 
them, for after a few days, some of the older girls 
caught on and dragged their secret out into the 
limelight. This gave rise to a fierce conflict in 
this small camp which was waged for several 
days, and in which some of the older girls almost 
lost some of their treasure which was hidden 
by the Pirates. But in the end it all came out 
peaceably, through the confessions of one of 
the Pirates, who, tied to a tree with middy 
ties, was obliged to tell about the missing slip- 
pers. 

In regions where camps lie near together, there 
is likely to be a pleasant interruption almost any 
day in a surprise visit from another camp. 
Comes the sound of tramp, tramp, tramp, down 
the road or perhaps it is horses' hoofs, and all 
the camp comes running from every direction to 
take a stand in front of the porch. At the mo- 
ment the visitors appear in sight, they start a song 
of welcome. The newcomers answer in a sere- 
nade of their own. Then each home girl adopts 
one of the visitors, and hurries her off to her own 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 149 

tent and a bathing suit, the highest courtesy to 
offer a camp girl. The visiting camp has brought 
lunch, which they enjoy out under the trees, the 
hostesses sending out something extra in the way 
of ice-cream or cool drinks. A short period of 
visiting after dinner, and then comes rest hour, 
which not even a visit interrupts. So the visitors, 
having planned to spend theirs in a quiet spot fur- 
ther on, prepare to start off and the girls at home, 
making their way to the tents on the hill, wave 
good-by, as the guests march out of sight around 
the bend in the road. 

Another nice surprise that the girls of some 
camps enjoy is the welcome home, that is given 
to the climbers returning from the mountains, 
after two or three days away from camp. One 
such occasion that stands out in memory was the 
return of a party from a camp in Vermont after 
climbing Mount Moosilauke. They came in on 
a late train, and reached camp after dark. For 
after reaching the station they had to walk a mile, 
and take a little steamer down the lake. The 
stay-at-homes, after an early supper, spent a busy 
hour getting everything in readiness for their wel- 
come. Inside, the dining hall was a mass of dec- 
oration, of lovely fern and goldenrod, while an 



150 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

extra hot supper waited in the kitchen. The ta- 
ble was made festive with candles, and at each 
person's place was the mail that had accumulated 
while she was gone. 

Outside, the campers, each with a Japanese lan- 
tern fastened on a stick, were forming two lines to 
reach from the house to the pier. Between these 
lines the climbers were to pass. The porches 
were aglow with colored lights that made a con- 
tinuous line clear out to the end of the pier. 

When all was ready there was a long wait. 
Anxious individuals ran out every little while to 
the end of the pier or down the road to listen; 
others hummed over the new song. It seemed as 
though they would never come. By and by a 
sound came floating over the water, that sounded 
like the camp cheer. The watchers strained their 
ears, then came a familiar camp song. They 
were coming. Each light bearer held high his 
glowing torch. Near and nearer came the sound, 
and soon the little steamer hove in sight, showing 
in shadowy outlines a dozen pairs of feet, dan- 
gling over the sides. As the word of command 
was passed along, the line on shore straightened 
up. Then the big hulk of the steamer grazed the 
little dock, and in another moment a dozen soiled 



OUTSIDE THE SCHEDULE 151 

and bedraggled figures fell into the embraces of a 
mob of shrieking, struggling friends. In the ex- 
citement that followed the pretty tableau of the 
lantern procession was forgotten, as everybody 
flocked around the incoming travellers, and all 
unconsciously, trailed their bits of paper in the 
dust. But the song was not forgotten, and later 
on, as the climbers were enjoying the good hot 
supper, and the attentions of a few selected help- 
ers, it was sung by a band of loyal friends outside 
the window. 

"We 're waiting on the docks 
To greet the Moosilaukes 

For we 've missed you sadly while you were upom 
those awful rocks. 

Each Camp girl added to what you Ve got makes 

just a little girl more." 

If you want to know how good it is to have a 
welcome like that, you will have to take the trip 
from such a camp. 

These are some of the things that go on in a 
girls' camp, and if there is anyone who is not con- 
vinced that they have a better time than the folks 
in the city, with their round of social engagements, 
we will challenge them with the rest of the song 
quoted at the beginning: 



152 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

So leave hotels and parties 
And get right into line 

Come to Camp 

And you '11 have a jolly time. 



CHAPTER X 

THE COUNCILOR 

THE first impression of a crowd of girls in 
camp costume is that they are all alike — 
even the same age. So it is not uncom- 
mon for a visitor to mistake a councilor for a 
camp girl and to ask her what time she has to go 
to bed and who chaperones her on her trips. 
This young person known as a councilor is usu- 
ally a college girl chosen for certain qualities 
which will be discussed later, for whom camp life 
has a strong appeal and who enjoys playing the 
part of big sister to the younger girl. If the visi- 
tor were to look more carefully into the group he 
might find some gray hairs, for older heads have 
a place in the organization. But the average 
councilor in the girls' camp is a young person 
possessed of fine spirit and enthusiasm and who 
is the guide, philosopher and friend of the 
younger girl. 

In girls' camps, the organization, or camp coun- 
cil, consists of one or more executives, or head 

153 



154 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

councilors and a staff of assistants, a certain 
number of whom are specialists in the various 
camp activities. One of these is a registered 
nurse. In the best camps it is her duty, not so 
much to look out for sickness as to guard the 
health of the campers. In such camps she is 
known as the health councilor, and mingles 
freely in the camp activities, avoiding the role of 
a nurse, but keeping an eye upon her charges for 
signs of colds or fatigue or any symptoms that 
might lead to illness. Under her direction the 
girls themselves learn the principles of First Aid 
and the simple rules of hygiene that are so im- 
portant in maintaining throughout the year the 
health standards gained at camp. In case of ill- 
ness the camp nurse is at hand to give the neces- 
sary care so long as the patient remains at camp, 
but in most camps cases of illness are rare. 

Another important member of the camp council 
is the director of athletics. A great many camps 
have a man in charge of water sports, and a young 
woman graduate of one of the schools for physi- 
cal education for general athletics. The athletic 
councilor, with a pleasing personality comes in 
for a good share of popularity, since she is the 
playmate of the campers as well as their guide in 



THE COUNCILOR ISS 

sports. With her also rests considerable respon- 
sibility for the health and physical well-being of 
her fellow campers. In camps of the more care- 
ful type she keeps a physical record of each girl, 
including her weight and measurement on en- 
trance and maintains a careful oversight of each 
individual's activities, to see that she does not 
overdo and that her record shows physical im- 
provement. In the large camps there are several 
councilors trained in athletics, who are assigned 
to the various sports, and take their share in 
coaching basket-ball, baseball, tennis, hockey 
and other field sports, teach folk dancing or give 
the setting-up drill. 

Another specialist is the crafts councilor, who 
must be more or less of an expert in her line 
whether it be basketry, pottery, work in leather, 
J3welry, block printing, embroidery or any other 
of the great variety of problems in hand work of- 
fered by the camps in these days. In the very 
large camps half a dozen councilors are kept busy 
with enthusiastic classes during the craft hours. 

In nearly all the camps, too, a special councilor 
is engaged for nature study, whose duty it is to en- 
courage nature walks; to open the eyes of camp- 
ers to the great variety of plant life to be found 



156 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

in the neighborhood; to direct their attention to 
the trees, birds or stars according to the extent of 
her own knowledge and training. 

There are other specialists for dancing, for dra- 
matics, for domestic science ; a camp secretary and 
a dietitian, and as many others as the standards 
— or perhaps the size — of the camp demands. 
Besides these there is the average college girl who 
has no special qualification to offer except a 
strong character and a winning personality. 
This girl, known as a general councilor, holds an 
important place in the camp, since upon her de- 
pends largely the spirit of the camp and the wel- 
fare and happiness of the girls. Aside from look- 
ing after the girls placed in her care the general 
councilor usually has assigned to her some du- 
ties connected with the camp management, such 
as the Pound or the laundry or the dining-room, 
or picnic lunches. 

The relation of the councilor to the girls is 
quite different from that of a teacher. In a sense 
she is a teacher, but at the same time she is an 
intimate companion, in many camps sharing the 
same tent with the girls in her care. By playing 
the same games and sharing the same interests 
she gains a more or less unconscious influence 



THE COUNCILOR 157 

and if she is the right kind of a girl enjoys the 
intimate confidence of the girls under her care. 
Some girls will talk things over freely with their 
councilors that they would not mention to their 
mothers. The councilor who exerts this kind of 
leadership has a great opportunity. 

As an example of the kind of leadership re- 
sulting from this relation, a young councilor, the 
delight of the campers by reason of her dry hu- 
mor, was sitting one hot afternoon among a group 
of girls in a village store, after a long hike, en- 
joying an ice cream soda. It was about time for 
the second round, and this, in the interest of sound 
hygiene, she wished to avoid. So at the critical 
moment she lifted her glass and observed in the 
most casual way, ''Barbara and I had TWO of 
these the other day, and believe me, before we got 
to the top of the hill we regretted it." Although 
nothing more was said on the subject, there were 
no "seconds" when the girl came around again 
for orders, and the crowd that climbed the hills 
back to camp came in with good appetites for sup- 
per. That off-hand observation from a person 
with an unquestioned reputation as a ''good fel- 
low" was far more effective than any amount of 
precept from the camp leader. 



158 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Aside from this direct or indirect influence, each 
councilor owes to the girls under her care very 
definite guidance as to such matters as participa- 
tion in sports ; periods of rest ; care of belongings ; 
personal neatness; gentle manners; the habit of 
promptness; writing letters home; and in every 
way upholding the ideals and standards of the 
camp. 

Since a camp is judged or rated by its council- 
ors, the most careful directors give more con- 
sideration to the selection of the right kind of 
leaders for their girls than to any other point in 
camp management. The councilors are chosen 
for certain qualifications which the director finds 
important to the success of his or her particular 
camp. Not long ago a questionnaire was sent 
out by the National Association of Camp Direc- 
tors to a large number of its members throughout 
the country, asking what qualities in their opinion 
were most desirable in a councilor. The result 
brought out three leading qualifications upon 
w^hich all seemed to be agreed. These were, in 
order, ( 1 ) ability for the particular kind of work 
for which she is chosen, (2) personality, and (3) 
leadership. 

Some of the leading camp directors have a care- 



THE COUNCILOR 159 

fully worked out plan for the selection and en- 
gaging of councilors. A plan like this, outlined 
by the director of a large and successful camp 
for Jewish girls is contained in a manual called 
Instructions to Councilors, which is given to 
each person who is a candidate for a councilor- 
ship in the camp. In this manual the qualifica- 
tions are outlined as follows : 

^'The candidate must ( 1 ) have passed her nine- 
teenth birthday; (2) have had a college education 
or equivalent; (3) be ready to take the oath of al- 
legiance to the United States; (4) be in robust 
physical condition; (5) possess six qualities — 
Ability, Devotion to Duty, Loyalty, Promptness, 
Justice, Courtesy. It will be helpful also if she 
has had training and experience as a teacher and 
leader of girls in outdoor activities, and is a 
strong swimmer, a skillful canoeist and a good 
hiker. Her value is determined by whether she 
puts forth the maximum effort to advance the in- 
terests of the campers, as to health, pleasure, ed- 
ucation and character. She has failed if she 
has not put forth her best effort." 

In other camps many of these things are taken 
for granted before the candidate is considered at 
all. In some cases, too, the qualifications are en- 



160 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

tirely different. Each leader has his or her own 
standard. For example, the director of an 
equally successful camp says, "I care little how 
many your diplomas, and but slightly which end 
of the class you led, except as it represents char- 
acter and endowment." 

Whatever the differences of opinion, the qual- 
ities demanded of the camp councilor in the av- 
erage camp are, in the main, the same that she in 
turn expects of the camp girl. And all these 
qualities — cheerfulness and good sportsmanship, 
dependableness, thoughtfulness for others and de- 
votion to the general good — might all be summed 
up in the term Camp Spirit. But perhaps after 
all the most important quality in the councilor 
is a genuine love for girls. Not long ago a col- 
lege girl was asked her honest opinion about an- 
other girl at college, as to how she would fit in 
at camp. The girl was honest, and her verdict 
was something like this. "Jan is a very attrac- 
tive girl with lots of 'pep,' but somehow I can't 
see her at a camp. If she liked it, all would be 
well, but if she was uninterested — . She does n't 
seem to care very much for children." 

Another girl, a young councilor in a well- 
known camp, who was chosen for her fine lead- 



THE COUNCILOR 161 

ership in college, said to the camp leader about 
the middle of the summer, ''Don't you sometimes 
feel like running off somewhere to get away from 
the girls? I get so tired of them sometimes. I 
wonder how you stand it." The older woman 
looked at her in amazement. ''My dear!" she 
exclaimed. "If you feel that way you have no 
place in a girls' camp. I love the girls. I am 
sorry when they go away and can hardly wait till 
they come back again. When I feel otherwise I 
shall not be the head of a girls' camp." Need- 
less to say, that councilor was not invited to come 
back. 

From personal observation there is one quality 
above many others that seems to me to be neces- 
sary in a councilor, and that is joyous enthusi- 
asm. A case comes to mind of a councilor who, 
among her set at home had gained somewhat of 
a reputation for humor, but tested out in the camp 
environment she showed that she really knew lit- 
tle of the joy of living. Everything she under- 
took was a task. So it was small wonder that 
when she set about rehearsing for a play with 
"Come now, girls, you have to go to rehearsal," 
she met with a feeble response. "Have to" is 
foreign to the camp vocabulary and fails to call 



162 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

forth the best effort. So the dramatics, the joy 
of camp activities and the outlet for free self-ex- 
pression became an effort and a bore. Down in 
the garden, on the other hand, a band of volun- 
teers with an enthusiastic councilor were tackling 
real difficulties day after day with true camp 
spirit and having such a good time over it that 
for all the hard work the gardening gained more 
and more in popularity. Yet it was not until the 
end of the season that the first councilor came to 
see that the difficulty was with herself and not 
with the campers. 

Still another important qualification for a 
councilor is the one referred to in the manual 
of instructions to councilors mentioned above as 
''justice," which is defined as an impartial atti- 
tude toward all, or absence of favoritism. This 
is of extreme importance to the young and pop- 
ular councilor, for it is here that she meets a 
great temptation. She is apt to be sought after 
by special groups, to be admired by the popular 
girls. It is hard to make a stand — to withstand 
this kind of flattery, to refuse to be drawn into 
narrow circles and to give herself to the whole 
camp. But failing in this she has not made good, 
for the councilor who spends her time with a few 



THE COUNCILOR 163 

chosen friends is not upholding the standard of 
the camp. 

In a letter to her own councilors, a camp di- 
rector of long experience and one of the pioneers 
in the Girls' Camp Movement has set forth with 
great clearness what is expected of a councilor 
and at the same time has expressed some of the 
ideals that are held by every camp of the highest 
type. By the courtesy of this camp leader, the 
letter is quoted in full. 

Dear Aloha Councilors: 

You are such a goodly number that I fear many 
days will pass after camp opens before I have a long 
full talk quietly with each one of you. Accordingly 
I am writing this letter to help you start camp life just 
right. I hope you are all bubbling over with enthusiasm 
and joy as you think of the nine weeks of life close to 
Mother Nature that is before us. 

When you reach Aloha — be it the camp, club or the 
hive — you will drop your distinctive dress, don our ideally 
comfortable uniform and become one of the merry party 
in Lincoln green. But just what are we expecting from 
you besides the special service for which many of you 
have been secured? 

That you are all women of sterling worth of character; 
that you will quickly give whole-hearted loyalty to Aloha 



164 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 

ideals and Aloha management; that you love young peo- 
ple, and girls in particular with a big-hearted, warm- 
hearted appreciation is all expected as a matter of course. 
I hope you also have excellent health, for it often pads, 
so to speak, the sharp elbows of mal-adjusted companions. 
I hope you have a great sense of humor, for this helps 
mightily by -showing us true values and proportions. 

Besides the crafts and arts in which many of you will 
be giving instruction, there is the great art — the Fine Art 
of Living, in which each one of you will be giving daily, 
constant lessons to our Aloha daughters all summer long. 
Come to us with the heart of youth but the judgment of 
years. Learn to distinguish between preference and prin- 
ciple and teach the girls to do so, too. In slighting a 
few of the conventions of society, let no one set aside the 
courtesies of the well-bred. Teach the girls to be gen- 
erous but not lavish, orderly but not fussy, methodical 
in planning their time, and always careful not to en- 
croach on that of others. 

If you have a complaint, remedy it; if you can't, report 
it to headquarters; but if it can't be remedied, forget it. 
If you hear good of a camper, tell it to others; if evil, 
tell it not, doubt it — forget it. 

On a raw, rainy day make your own sunshine, on a 
sunny day, keep it up. If you have not learned the joy 
of service, learn it now. If you cannot throw yourself 
wholeheartedly intc^ the life of the camp and completely 
forget your own self in the delight of doing for the com- 



THE COUNCILOR 165 

munity, don't come. If you are thinking of what you are 
going to get, instead of what you are going to give, don't 
come. It is the givers, not the getters, that are the happy 
ones in this queer world of ours. 

Remember that the girls of today are the women of 

tomorrow, and that you have the blessed opportunity of 

moulding to some degree a few of these future women. 
Let this ennoble and inspire your work. 

If ever>' Aloha daughter is not a little finer for her 
summer with us it may be your fault or mine! If you 
find a homesick girl, give her a job to do for camp. The 
ideal councilor always leads her group. Her attitude 
is — "Come on, girls, let 's do this line thing." Be a help- 
ful, kindly sister of the older girls and the loving, 
motherly guide of the little lassies. 

Every camp should have excellent water, perfect sani- 
tation, delicious and abundant food, beautiful and noble 
scenery. But these alone do not make a perfect camp. 
It is the people, the spirit and ideal that rule a camp that 
make it perfect. 

Help us to make the spirit of Aloha that which will 
truly make the Aloha camps ideal. 

Sincerely your friend and co-worker, 

Harriet Farnsworth Gulick. 

The remuneration of a councilor is usually a 
summer free of expense and the same opportunity 
for a good time out of doors as the girls with 



166 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

whom she is associated. There is usually little 
or no financial remuneration except in the case 
of those with special training, who receive a sal- 
ary in proportion to the quantity and quality of 
their services. The relation of the councilor to 
the camp, although it may be based on a contract 
for service, is one of such happy and loyal co- 
operation that it breaks down the barriers of a 
mere business arrangement. And judging from 
the number of applications that flood the mails 
of the camp director from young women all over 
the country who want such a connection for the 
summer, it is a thing most eagerly sought after 
and much to be desired, to be a councilor in a 
girls' camp. 



CHAPTER XI 

INTER-CAMP DAYS 

' T TTERE they come! " suddenly shouted the 
I 1 outposts from away down the road. 
A JL For a long time they have been watch- 
ing there, these two trim figures in dark-brown 
bloomers and fresh white middies, stationed 
along a certain country road in New Hampshire 
on that important day in August, known as Inter- 
camp Day. 

Farther back, close by the entrance to the ath- 
letic field, were the rest of the crowd, likewise in 
the brown-bloomer, white-middy costume of Ta- 
homa, drawn up in a waiting line by the roadside, 
ready to welcome — whom, we shall see later. 

^'Here they come!" The word came like a 
shot, and the next moment the air was charged 
with the explosion, ''Here they are, girls! It's 
Hanoun!" as a big automobile could now be 
plainly seen reeling on its way toward them down 
the long woods road. "Hey, hurry up! 

167 



168 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

They 're coming ! Clear the way, everybody ! 
Back from the road! Yes, over there, Sue, with 
the megaphone!" 

The swaying car was very near, now, and 
not far behind was another. The song-leader 
stepped out in front, her hand poised in air. 
''Everybody, now! It's 'Whoop her up!' for 
Camp Hanoun!" 

Then, just as the serenaders began to "whoop 
her up ! " the heavy machine drew up by the road- 
side, and six or eight fit-looking young women in 
a costume of khaki and red hopped out. With- 
out waiting for the finish, they started an an- 
swering cheer. 

Into the midst of this the second machine stole 
swiftly, and in its wake was another. Looking 
down the long road, one could see still more com- 
ing, car after car rocking along on its uneven 
course, all filled with waving crowds of camp 
girls. Their voices, laughing and singing, came 
gaily through the woods. On they came, nearer 
and nearer, in a long procession, like the auto- 
mobile section of a holiday parade. Swiftly they 
drew up to the entrance, one after another, de- 
posited their lively fares, and turned back to the 
parking place to make room for more. This was 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 169 

an important occasion, like the big college game. 

The occasion was, as a matter of fact, an an- 
nual gathering of a dozen or more girls' camps 
located in this part of the White Mountain re- 
gion — on the Vermont-New Hampshire border — 
for a celebration known as the Inter-camp Frolic. 
As they piled out of the cars, a hundred or more 
girls in the blues, greens, and browns of their 
several camps, they were given a noisy welcome 
by the reception committees from three camps lo- 
cated near together here on the Lake Tarleton 
plateau. 

''Hello, Wynona!" went up a shout to a dele- 
gation in brown with white-lettered head-bands 
that had just tumbled out of their cars. 
''There 's Farwell! " burst forth, as a load in blue 
costumes rolled in. "This way, Hokomoko!" 
designated a band wearing bright red ties. And 
so on, as they kept on coming. It was all most 
exciting. "Where 's Quinnibeck?" was asked 
by and by — one camp seemed to be missing. 
"Oh, they must have stopped down at Aloha 
Club," some one said. The reception force, it 
seemed, was divided, and one half of the crowd 
was landing a mile or so below, where they were 
given a similar reception by the girls in green 



170 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

from Aloha Club. This crowd was considerably 
swelled now by the arrival of two more camps in 
green, who were met with a shout, and who com- 
pleted a reunion of three camps bearing one name, 
Aloha, and united in devotion to one leader. 

Up by the athletic field, the singing and cheer- 
ing kept right on growing noisier and noisier as 
each newly arrived camp came in. Frolic sing- 
ing, by the way, is as much a feature of a camp 
gathering as of a college reunion. One after an- 
other they broke forth in college serenades or 
camp songs — original songs, with clever hits, 
many of them at this time referring to war work 
and Mr. Hoover. Perhaps the most dramatic 
were from Serranna, the other hostess-camp, who 
was quarantined on account of a mumps scare 
and stood off by herself on the edge of the woods 
holding some big placards, which, like her songs, 
explained the situation. 

For a while the hostess song-leader attempted 
to lead, but one broke in to answer another, and 
sometimes there were two or three going at once. 
Which was no matter, and all the more exciting. 
Finally, above the cheerful noise, shouts could be 
heard from the megaphone, giving directions 
about visiting near-by camps before lunch, and 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 171 

the singers dispersed. This started the day's pro- 
gram, which held its bigger events for the after- 
noon. 

The custom of celebrating this Inter-camp Day 
began back in the early days when there were only 
two or three camps in this region, and not many 
more in the entire country. In those days, about 
one hundred girls met together for an afternoon of 
competitive sports, and, as they all sat down at 
the end of the day on the Aloha or Quinnibeck 
green for supper, it seemed like a big crowd. To- 
day they number nearly a thousand, and they 
march on a broad field in inspiring lines to the 
music of a brass band. This latter was the ef- 
fect of the war upon inter-camp celebrations. In 
place of the usual program of sports, there was 
to be a patriotic parade, with several divisions 
representing war activities, in which all the camps 
were taking part. 

Since there must always be some place in the 
day's plan for visiting together and getting ac- 
quainted, everybody, great and small, was now 
urged to come along and pay a visit to the hostess 
camps. Since there were two hostesses — there 
should have been three — the company divided up 
and some went that way to Aloha Club and some, 



172 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

in the other direction, to Tahoma. There were 
guides for each group, who walked importantly 
ahead and tried to act as though they were not 
showing off their own camp. Though they took 
a proper pride in conducting these rather unusual 
and sympathetic visitors through the rows of neat 
tents, with their tightly made cots — extra tightly 
made for the occasion — and their rows of trunks 
down the center, draped with good-looking 
steamer rugs, and every shelf in what the in- 
spector would pronounce "Al" order. The time 
was limited, but like guides from Cook's they 
hurried them through everything, including the 
dining-room, fresh with flowers ; the living-room, 
in faultless order; the recreation hall and porches, 
somewhat decorated; and the crafts room, where 
some special hand-work was on exhibition. And 
finally they gave them time and a swimming-suit 
to "go in" and try the spring-board and the 
chute. 

Many of these girls, who had never seen any 
other camp than their own, and had certain nar- 
row convictions about its superiority, found it 
illuminating to know that the other girl had the 
same convictions about her camp. All this makes 
for a spirit of inter-camp friendship, a fact which 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 173 

the camps in this union are coming more and 
more to appreciate. 

After an hour or more spent in these visits it 
was lunch-time, and the crowd came together 
again at the athletic field, where each camp found 
its own place, assigned on arrival and easily rec- 
ognized by its name in big letters, posted there 
by the reception committees. Each camp had 
brought its own luncheon, in big hampers, which 
were soon unpacked, but none too soon for the 
poor famished mortals who were beginning to 
feel the effects of a long, eventful, and "eatless" 
morning. 

Immediately after luncheon the various divi- 
sions of the parade began to line up, at certain 
intervals, from the luncheon-place to the Lake 
Tarleton green, and into each division were hur- 
ried the delegations assigned to it from each camp. 

At two-thirty the camps began the march to 
the Lake Tarleton green. The procession poured 
down the long, over-arched roadway to a point 
beyond the Lake Tarleton Club, turned, came on 
to the green, and advanced half-way across to 
where stood the statue-like figure of a camp mar- 
shal, thence straight up the center in squads of 
four. It was a stirring sight. Again, at a point 



174 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

held by another rigid figure in bloomer costume, 
they turned, separated, and went down the side of 
the field, uncoiling and spreading over the green 
like some huge snake. Now they seemed to fill 
the green, but still they kept coming on, turning, 
up the center, down the sides, now in fours, now 
in eights, each figure in perfect alignment, and 
each foot in step to the spirited airs played by the 
band. 

As the line marched on to the green, there was 
a flutter of applause from the crowds of spec- 
tators gathered from the country round and 
grouped on the side-lines. In the front came a 
drummer, a member of the orchestra in her own 
camp; then the marshals, four abreast, then the 
five patriotic divisions. Ahead of the first divi- 
sion, holding high the famous war-poster, called 
"Joan of Arc Saved France," marched a row of 
standard-bearers in bright bodices of red, white, 
and blue, their company representing War Sav- 
ings. The second division pressed on close be- 
hind, its standard-bearers carrying another fa- 
miliar war-poster, representing peasant women 
engaged in plowing, and urging us to food con- 
servation by saving wheat. The third division 
bore the banner and insignia of the Red Cross. 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 175 

In each division were pressed the khaki, blue, 
brown, and green in an each-for-all-and-all-for- 
each arrangement ; for the keynote of this wartime 
demonstration was cooperation and community 
action. Each division was distinguished by the 
particular color of its caps and insignia. 

After the war-garden section, which completed 
the line of war-time activities of camp girls, came 
the last division, representing the camp girls' own 
peculiar contribution to the war. Its original 
poster, featuring a big banner labeled "health," 
displayed by a sturdy-looking girl in a camp cos- 
tume of bright colors, was carried by four repre- 
sentatives from as many camps, who were well 
chosen for the part. 

In these four divisions the procession swept 
on across the field, with not a single pause or a 
hitch, now down, then right about and up; now 
in diagonal lines across the green, then back and 
up the sides, until, at a wonderful moment, they 
came down the field in the final formation, sixteen 
abreast, every line as straight as an arrow and 
every foot coming up in perfect time to the music. 
It was then that the crowd on the side-lines broke 
into noisy applause, and a spectator said some- 
thing to his neighbor about "West Pointers." 



176 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

But there was more to it than simply a drill 
well executed. There was something inspiring 
in the way these eight hundred girls, who had 
never met together before, fell into line in mixed 
companies and marched in perfect unison with 
never so much as a rehearsal, something that re- 
vealed a real inter-camp spirit and a comradeship 
not unlike that of the barracks and the trenches. 
It was like the unity of the Tommies, the Aus- 
tralians, and the Canadians, that Phillip Gibbs, 
in his wonderful war-correspondence, tells about. 
It is a unity that bars group jealousy, or even 
group consciousness. For although every indi- 
vidual girl marching along in her place in the 
ranks was a type of her particular camp, yet all 
these types were submerged, so that there was no 
distinction of camp, but a mass of girls number- 
ing up toward a thousand, coming from points as 
remote as Maine and California, Ontario and 
New Orleans, tramping side by side in the cause 
of — well, something big for women and girls that 
the camps stand for, a new kind of freedom and 
a new comradeship of life in the open. 

The solid mass moved slowly down the center. 
At a signal they turned ; marked time, then moved 
toward the road. Across the way stood the huge 




o 

s 




At a point held by a figure in bloomer costume, they turned 




Down they went in the midst of the puddles 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 177 

flagpole on the Lake Tarleton Club lawn. Three 
buglers stepped out from the ranks and four 
standard-bearers, and took their places around the 
pole. The company stood at attention while the 
buglers played in unison "To the Colors" and 
the standard-bearer raised the flag. In the exer- 
cises that followed was the pledge of allegiance 
to our flag and the singing of national airs, that 
never seemed more significant than now, out un- 
der the summer sky with such a wonderful com- 
pany and the mountain background. 

When it was all over, the company dispersed 
quickly in every direction: the cars began to roll 
up, the riders galloped away in a hurry, and little 
groups here and there were taking a hasty fare- 
well. Within half an hour the green was vacant. 
The flagpole stood alone on the club-house lawn, 
and beyond the lake the sun cast purple rays on 
the bare top of grand old Moosilauke. 

Back in the annals of Inter-camp Days there 
are records of a glorious day of sport on the farm 
lands of Camp Quinnibeck, on the shore of Lake 
Fairlee in Vermont, when Quinnibeck's hospital- 
ity was nobly expressed by big dish-pans full of 
doughnuts and wells of lemonade. There were 
relay races in the roadway; a tennis tournament 



178 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

and games in the field; and competitive swim- 
ming and diving down at the lake; every one 
working heart and soul for the honor of her par- 
ticular camp, but all united later on by a supper 
together on the hillside. 

Father Time could tell, too, if he would, of 
other happy days, spent by little new camps on 
the shore of old Lake Morey near Fairlee, in 
Vermont (where tradition has it that the first 
steamboat was tried out and then sunk), when 
the camps came together at the call of Aloha, the 
oldest of them all. He could tell of that par- 
ticular day when the celebration was first called 
a ''frolic," of the stunts in the water and on land; 
how chosen teams amused the crowd with canoe- 
tilting, with pillows lashed to their paddles, and 
other teams were challenged to "mess up" a tent 
and put it in order in double-quick time. There 
were the handicap races, and the free-for-all 
swim, and the supper out of doors, generously 
supplemented from Aloha's kitchen; and finally 
the parting in the summer twilight, some going in 
hay-wagons, some on horseback, — these were the 
days before automobiles began to pour in their 
hundreds, — all singing and cheering until long 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 179 

out of sight around the bends in the lovely road 
that winds its way around Lake Morey. 

Or, coming down to later times, who can forget 
the lovely Totem-pole ceremony at Camp Hanoum 
in 1914? There, near the scene of the famous 
Thetford Pageant, the camps assembled in the 
early afternoon of a lovely day in midsummer, 
and, falling into line on the plain below, filed up, 
up, up to the top of a high hill, where they en- 
tered a pine wood and followed a path which led 
out onto a grassy circle. There stood the huge 
symbolic pole, made by Hanoum's craft-workers. 
Made in sections, eight in all, and put together 
to represent the eight camps uniting for the cele- 
bration. As they emerged from the woods in sin- 
gle file, the campers marched in a spiral round 
and round the pole, singing the festival song 
made for the occasion and accompanied by an 
inter-camp orchestra in the center, while a crowd 
of spectators from the city and the country round 
about looked on and gave their applause. Then 
came each camp in turn to the center of the stage, 
and in the allotted ten minutes presented their 
pantomime or ''stunt" prepared for the occasion. 
For the most appropriate one, the big banner, con- 



180 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

taining the inter-camp dragon, now floating from 
the top of the totem, was the reward. 

When it was all over, the campers rushed to 
the center for a final song together, then, almost 
as quickly, scattered and made their way by vari- 
ous paths down the hillside to mingle again on 
the plain. Hanoum, at the top of the hill, massed 
together and sang a farewell. Down below, a 
score of riders started away toward the setting 
sun; automobiles bore away another delegation; 
and then the north-bound train steamed into the 
little station, swallowed up the last of the crowd, 
and disappeared around the bend; and one splen- 
did Inter-camp Day was over. 

The frolic of 1915 was marred by a persistent, 
unreasonable, and finally pouring, rain. In the 
early morning the signs had been unpromising, 
but later it had cleared, and by ten o'clock the 
country lanes leading to Camp Farwell were alive 
with automobiles, flying big banners, passing each 
other on the way to and from the station at Wells 
River, while a single hay-wagon and a few riders 
joined on to the procession at the cross-roads. 
At the entrance to Farwell's grounds they all fell 
into line and marched in under the pine-trees 
along the shore of the lake. Farwell was lined 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 181 

up to greet them, and there was the usual round 
of singing and cheers. All was going well until 
the program started — a program of "stunts," each 
camp having arranged for her own. 

The stage was Farwell's tennis-court, banked 
on one side with fir-trees, rustic benches being 
arranged here and there among them. The first 
camp to come on was the hostess of the year be- 
fore, in a pantomime and song in camp costume. 
As they made their entrance, some rain began to 
fall, small drops at first, and not very disturbing. 
They went right on. The first act represented a 
mountain hike, and kept them moving rapidly 
around the court. Meanwhile, the drops grew 
bigger and bigger and came faster and faster. 
By the time for the second act, the stage was flow- 
ing with little streams from the banks above, and 
the audience had begun to move under the trees 
for shelter or found refuge in the automobiles. 

Now the next verse of the song described a night 
on the mountain-top, and the singers had to lie 
down. What would they do? The other camps 
looked on with sympathy, thinking of their turn. 
Some sighed over their dainty costumes. There 
was a moment of suspense, while Hanoum hesi- 
tated. Then, with the game spirit characteristic 



182 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

of campers, down they went, and snuggled to- 
gether in the midst of the puddles as in a moun- 
tain hut, forming a tableau that was very dra- 
matic indeed. The rain kept increasing, but they 
went right on. And after them the camps, one 
after another, came on in the midst of the down- 
pour and presented their lovely tableaux, dances, 
and masques, with a loyal audience looking on 
from the inadequate shelter of dripping trees. 

One camp had prepared a beautiful flower pan- 
tomime — a whole garden in color, the costumes 
made of crepe paper. Out in all the downpour 
they went through the scenes, as game as the 
others, kneeling in the puddles ; and when they got 
through, the once beautiful costumes were drip- 
ping color over everything, and of course, com- 
pletely ruined. 

The rain continued and increased all through 
the afternoon, and Farwell met the situation with 
a blazing hearth-fire and hot refreshments. 
Neither was there any let-up on the way home, 
yet, remarkable as it may seem, not a girl there 
was known to have taken cold! 

Out of these inter-camp celebrations has come 
the Inter-camp Association, comprising these 
camps located in the valley of the upper Connecti- 



INTER-CAMP DAYS 183 

cut River in Vermont and New Hampshire, which 
now number fourteen. Besides the big celebra- 
tion in mid-summer, the camps are united in mak- 
ing trails and building shacks, following the ex- 
ample of the Appalachian Mountain Club and 
Dartmouth's Outing Club, whose hospitality they 
have enjoyed on mountain trips. There are fre- 
quent meets for water sports, basket-ball and 
tennis. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 

WE have heard about the life in the 
girls' camps far away among the 
hills of New England. Coming 
nearer home, within an hour's ride from the big 
city is another type of camp, where a girl with 
only two or three weeks' vacation and a limited 
pocket book can go any time during the summer 
months and have all the fun and freedom of camp 
life and association with other girls. There are 
numbers of these camps scattered all over the 
country, and we wish there were twice as many 
more. To hundreds of girls who are facing the 
question of summer vacation after a hard year at 
work or at school, these camps stand for a real 
rest, a good time, a big vision and new friend- 
ships. 

The biggest and oldest of all of these, and one 
of the oldest girls' camps in the country, is Camp 

Altamont, in the Heldeberg Mountains in New 

184 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 185 

York, which is under the care of the Northeast 
Field Committee of the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association. Girls come to this camp in big 
delegations from nearly all the eastern states — 
girls from high school and college, from business, 
industrial and professional life and mingle to- 
gether around the camp fire, in hikes and straw 
rides and ''bacon bats" in the big free democracy 
of Altamont. 

To get a good picture of the life at Altamont, 
it would be well to follow one of these delegations 
through their two weeks at camp. This party 
of eighteen are all members of girls' clubs in a 
New Jersey town. They are all friends, and way 
back in the winter they planned to spend the va- 
cation together at camp. It required some ma- 
neuvering to arrange to have their vacations at 
the same time, but here they are, bag and baggage, 
piling up the gangway of the Albany day boat, 
on a bright morning in mid-summer, all ready to 
start. A few minutes later the ropes are cast off 
and the merry party is settled on the forward deck 
for an all-day sail up the beautiful Hudson, leav- 
ing the heat and dust of the roaring city for the 
high, wind-swept fields and tent rows of camp. 

Some girls spend days and sometimes nights 



186 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

toiling over white skirts and fluffy ruffles for a 
two weeks' vacation. In order to have everything 
fresh at once, one girl wore a wool dress to busi- 
ness in the heat of mid-summer. But the girl in 
this gay crowd is free from the thought of dress, 
and all her baggage is done up in a single suit- 
case. 

A day in this company passes quickly, and the 
sights along shore claim much attention, and so 
almost before they know it they have entered the 
narrow part of the river, the sun is far in the 
west, and the next thing they are landing at Al- 
bany. There is a wild rush for the train and a 
minute more would have lost it. On board there 
are other girls who "look like Altamont," and 
after a short ride they all pile out together with 
boxes and suitcases on a little narrow platform. 
A hack is waiting to take them up the mountain. 
The old vehicle creaks and groans as the sturdy 
horses plod along up the hill with their heavy 
load, telling of the strain of other years and of the 
hundreds of girls it has borne up that steep slope 
in the early light or the gathering darkness of the 
summer night. It is growing dark now, and as 
they land safely on the top of the hill a great 
building looms up before them and a light shines 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 187 

out from one of the windows. Coming nearer, 
they can see outlined in the semi-darkness the 
big tower and the stone walls of the Castle, an 
imposing relic of the. past history of a rich capi- 
talist, now serving as headquarters for two hun- 
dred camp girls. At the sight of the light from 
the castle, there come cheers from the hack, an- 
swered by the councilors stationed at the door- 
way. The horses trot briskly around the winding 
roadway and land their crew in front of the door. 
They follow a councilor with a red badge 
across a rustic bridge, to an open field where rows 
of white tents are visible through the half dark- 
ness. Each tent, with board platform, has two 
cots and a set of shelves. Here and there among 
them are shacks, or little bungalows. To one of 
these, close to the edge of the woods and looking 
out over the field, six of the party are assigned to- 
gether, while the others are paired off in tents near 
by. Dropping their baggage they are conducted 
back to the castle for supper in a big dining-room 
with openings on all sides to the out-of-doors — 
and then to bed. In these strange surroundings 
the newcomer lies awake for a long while watch- 
ing the wind waving the tops of the big trees on 
the edge of the woods, but at last dozes off, and 



188 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

knows nothing more until the sound of the camp 
bell comes booming through her slumbers, re- 
minding her of an oncoming train. And while 
still rubbing her eyes she is routed out of bed by 
a mischief-making member of her own party and, 
dressing as quickly as possible, is only just in 
time to join the crowd in middle blouses that 
comes trooping at the call of the next bell toward 
the dining-room. 

The camp routine begins at once with tent in- 
spection, and the newcomers fall right in and do 
their part in keeping up the camp discipline. 
The camp is divided into five tribes, with two 
councilors each, and the responsibility rests with 
each girl to make good not only for herself but 
also for her tribe. For there are honors to be won 
in this camp, and everyone must do her best dur- 
ing two short weeks to make the record high. If 
she makes good in the care of her tent, in personal 
conduct and in nature work, she wins honors for 
herself. If she maintains quiet after Taps and 
before the rising bell; if she turns out for games 
and songs and cheers; if she cultivates the tribal 
spirit, entering into the spirit of the ''stunts" and 
campfires, she is helping to win for her tribe, and 
when her tribe wins she wears a green and white 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 189 

ribbon. Then she is in the way of advancement 
and can go on and on to win higher honors known 
as recreational honors, in swimming and hiking 
and nature work and further tribal honors and 
wear a red ribbon, and at the end of a very short 
period she feels like a seasoned camper. And 
well she may, for in these two weeks of outdoor 
sports she gains more physical development than 
in a whole winter of work in the gymnasium. 
And if she is shy and needs a little encouragement, 
a councilor is there to help. 

So the new campers work to be ready for in- 
spection. From their tents they go to the ap- 
pointments — to enter into the baseball and basket- 
ball for the honor of the tribe, to learn to play 
tennis with a college girl for instructor, and in 
the afternoons have glorious times going out a 
little way from camp for bacon bats, or for longer 
hikes to distant points of interest, or for hay rides ; 
and in the evenings meet together around the 
camp fire with the tribe and hold council and 
award honors and sing camp songs. So the two 
weeks roll along so rapidly that they seem like 
but two days. And yet they are packed so full 
of new experiences and good times that the two 
weeks' camper, like the girl in the all-summer 



190 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

camp in Maine, goes home imbued with the spirit 
and traditions of the camp. And when the time 
for the winter reunion comes, two hundred and 
fifty girls come together in one city to renew the 
friendships, sing the camp songs and exchange 
reminiscences, calling to mind the all-day trips 
and straw rides, the bright summer days, the view 
from Altamont's plateau of the gleaming valley 
below, and a thousand and one little incidents of 
camp life that are still vivid after months of city 
life. 

There is another camp that sounds out its call 
to hundreds of school girls to come away for real 
camping for three weeks in the summer time, and 
that is the Girl Scout camp. One of the largest 
of the organized Scout camps is at Central Valley, 
New York, on the shore of a lake about eleven 
miles from West Point. A rustic headquarters 
building with big porches, a colony of tents in a 
semicircle on the edge of the woods, a field for 
drills and a lake all to themselves make up the 
background for a hundred and fifty Girl Scouts 
between the ages of twelve and eighteen. The 
troops come in succession for three weeks of camp- 
ing. The Scouts are assigned to the twelve tents 
— eight girls to a tent — that face the drill ground, 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 191 

with 'the councilors' tents near by. Each coun- 
cilor is responsible for the girls in two tents. 

The Scout camp begins its day with a bugle call 
and setting-up drill and then a flag raising cere- 
mony, while the bugler plays ^'To the Colors." 
Then the company marches in to breakfast, which 
is prepared by a professional cook and served by 
a special squad detailed for the day to ^'fatigue 
duty." For the Scouts do real camping, and each 
day twelve girls — two from each table — are as- 
signed to clear the table, wash and wipe the 
dishes, put the mess hall in order, clean up the 
grounds and rake the driveway. The duties of 
the Fatigue Squad begin at three-thirty in the 
afternoon and end at three-thirty the next day, 
in time for a swim. Whatever happens, the Girl 
Scout never misses her swim. 

Breakfast over, they have the next half-hour to 
get ready for inspection, while the Fatigue Squad 
are busy elsewhere, and after a brisk competition 
in making cots, putting away clothes and "picking 
up" tents comes the tent inspector. As she ap- 
proaches a tent, seven girls take their places and 
stand at attention at the foot of the cots, while the 
Scout Honor Girl, who has been chosen by her tent 
mates to take the responsibility for the tent, stands 



192 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

at the front, ready to receive the verdict of the in- 
spector and pass it on to her mates. What the 
inspector has to say is full of significance for 
these eight Scouts, for upon her verdict hangs the 
question of winning the camp banner, which is 
awarded for order and discipline and attendance 
at the camp appointments, to the tent having the 
highest record. 

The inspector goes, and the day's activities 
begin. Divided into three groups they spend the 
morning out under the trees, learning Signalling, 
First Aid, Home Nursing, tying knots and other 
scout work, alternated with games and drills and 
swimming, each Scout finding the assignment for 
her division posted on the bulletin board. Each 
girl belongs to a group that takes in three tents, 
and all day long she has her games and swimming 
and scout work at the hours assigned for that 
group. But tomorrow she has her swimming at 
another hour, for the grouping is changed, and 
Tent One instead of being in the same division 
with Three and Four is now with Seven and 
Eight. This arrangement is designed to do away 
with the dulness of routine, and add variety to 
the daily program. The Scouts, like all other 
girl campers have a rest hour after dinner and 




The Ice Cream Shack, Altamont 




Getting ready for inspection 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 193 

the rest of the afternoon is spent in periods of 
work and free play with an opportunity to visit 
the canteen before the supper call comes, at five- 
thirty. The Honor Girls appointed by their tent, 
hold a court in the afternoon, — and a part of each 
day is devoted to talks on the Scout law and spirit. 

The evening is full of interesting games, and 
hikes and rowing and campfires have their place 
too, and singing around the fire, till at eight- 
thirty the call comes to go to bed and ten minutes 
later Taps sounds out for quiet and sleep. 

All this sounds like routine, but every week 
there is an afternoon entertainment, when each 
tent contributes a number to the program. Two 
or three times during the summer there is a big 
field day, that has been worked up in advance 
with much enthusiasm for the teams. There are 
frequent hikes, too, and camping-out parties by 
tents or by tables, and one day the schedule is set 
aside for an all-day hike. Everybody goes out 
of camp, different groups starting out at ten 
o'clock in the morning, going in different direc- 
tions and returning at five in the afternoon. 
Then at the end of the summer there is one fancy 
dress party that is the big event in closing. 

Now this is only one of the camps for Girl 



194 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Scouts. Throughout the country there are others, 
not so big perhaps, but some of them organized 
and offering all these camp activities. There are 
local camps for the troops of certain cities, and 
some day there will be more, under the direction 
of the Girl Scout Movement, that will include the 
girls of many cities. For we are only beginning 
this business of camping in this country of ours. 
It is encouraging to know that there are several 
big National movements that are concerned over 
the question of camps for girls. For a number 
of years the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion has been interested in providing camps for 
girls, and now in different parts of the country 
there are other big organized camps like Alta- 
mont. One is a seashore camp, at Vineyard 
Haven, Massachusetts, known as Camp Ma- 
koniky. Here for five summers girls from all the 
eastern states have been enjoying the combination 
of country and seashore, the swimming, sailing, 
tramping, tennis, basket ball and picnics of the 
salt water camp, with the same kind of spirit and 
leadership as Altamont, so that now the name Ma- 
koniky stands for the same kind of care-free 
vacation to hundreds of other girls. 

Another of the large Y. W. C. A. camps is 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 195 

Nepahwin, at Canton, Pennsylvania, under the 
direction of the East Central Field Committee, 
for Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. 
Nepahwin means '^House of Rest" and this camp, 
situated in the midst of rolling hills and fertile 
valleys, is maintained by the committee as a place 
of rest and recreation for the girls of their several 
states. The management at Nepahwin is differ- 
ent from that of Altamont and Makoniky. For 
in place of councilors there is a committee of 
girls called the Recreation Committee, who plan 
all the camp activities. And although there are 
more than a hundred girls there is no division into 
groups or tribes, but all belong to one big family. 
Every girl has a chance to become acquainted 
with every other girl, for the places at table are 
changed every day. The season opens with a 
club conference for girls of the private schools. 
There is a later one for the high schools and an- 
other for industrial clubs, and then the camp is 
open to all girls for the regular vacation and 
sports. 

Pennsylvania has another organized camp un- 
der the same committee. California also has a 
large and successful one, and here and there are 
camps maintained by the local Associations. 



196 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

These camps of the Young Women's Christian 
Association are open to all girls regardless of sect. 

Another camp with a religious basis is Camp 
Pinnacle, also in the Helderberg Mountains, not 
far from Altamont, under the Young Women's 
Bible Training Movement. Besides a program of 
recreation, Camp Pinnacle conducts Bible study 
courses and missionary lectures, and each summer 
provides for the vacation of hundreds of girls. 

As we have said before, there are several big 
National movements that are interested in the 
question of camping for girls. Not the least of 
these is the organization of Camp Fire Girls 
which has done so much for the cause of out door 
life for girls all over the country. Ten years 
ago the number of girls who went camping dur- 
ing the summer vacation might have been counted 
by the hundreds. Today, under the leadership 
of the Camp Fire Girls alone, about fifty thousand 
girls — girls from east and west and north and 
south — enjoy the experience of sleeping out; 
cooking over an open fire; learning the ways of 
the trail and how to know the birds and trees; 
holding council around a camp fire; and cement- 
ing friendships by sharing the common experi- 
ences of the life in the open. And while these 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 197 

girls may not have had the advantage of perma- 
nent organized camps, yet many of them by their 
own efforts and those of their friends, were able 
to establish all-summer camps with tents, loaned 
for the summer, pitched on a vacant farm or other 
site contributed by some interested owner. And 
these camps conducted by the guardians are the 
joy of hundreds of girls who come and go for the 
two weeks' vacation. One of the largest of these 
at Crete, Nebraska, last summer was attended by 
three hundred and fifty Nebraska girls. An- 
other, conducted by the Camp Fire Girls organ- 
ization of Chicago, was attended by large num- 
bers of Chicago girls. 

The Woodcraft League of America is another 
National organization that is calling us to live 
out of doors and helping the camper to learn more 
of the ways of the woods, and its influence is to be 
felt in the winter months in the city as well as in 
the summer days in camp or on the trail, by girls 
of the all-summer and the short vacation camps 
alike. 

There are many other local organizations in the 
big cities throughout the country that include 
summer camps for their girls in their program. 
In New York, the United Workers, the Girls' Pro- 



198 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

tective League, the League for Women's Service, 
the settlements and department stores are some of 
the agencies that are maintaining summer camps. 

All these are but the beginnings of a movement 
that is bound to grow, as our nation, receiving 
back its boys with new gains from their camp life, 
in physical development and broader mental out- 
look, will come to realize that we owe as much to 
our girls. For one of the greatest needs for the 
growing girls of our nation is the opportunity to 
get away from the artificial restraints of our mod- 
ern city life — away from the noise and heat and 
dust of the big city for a period in the summer 
time to the freedom of life out of doors. And 
not the least valuable part of this experience is 
the opportunity to live with other girls in a com- 
munity of common interests. A club girl who 
went to a Y. W. C. A. camp said to the councilor, 
^'Before I went to camp I used to live in a little 
world of my own, with the door shut." But when 
she went home after her two weeks' vacation, the 
girls who worked next to her found the door wide 
open, and before long they made her president of 
the club. 

Another older girl who enjoyed hugely her two 
weeks at camp, in trying to tell how much it had 



THE SHORT VACATION CAMP 199 

meant to her said it was as though she ''had gotten 
a college education in two weeks." This girPs 
whole spirit was changed, for she had fifteen girls 
working under her, and before going to camp her 
attitude had been to see how much she could get 
out of them ; now it was how much she could give 
them. 

With all these movements interested in camping 
for girls let us hope that the number of camps 
will grow and increase till there is not a girl in 
the land who can not have the opportunity to 
spend her vacation in camp. 



CHAPTER XIII 

SINGING 

IT was the last day of a White Mountain trip. 
All through the morning the clouds had 
hung low, but now in the early afternoon a 
heavy rain had set in and a dozen bedrenched and 
bedraggled campers, far from home, swished 
along the seven-mile road leading from Lost 
River to North Woodstock in the midst of a merci- 
less downpour. Having already come seven 
miles since dawn down the mountain trail, and 
spent the morning climbing up and down the 
ladders of Lost River's caves, worming their way 
like caterpillars through the narrow openings, 
they were now on the last stretch toward home, 
hurrying along to catch the train at North Wood- 
stock, when along came a cloudburst. What 
did they do? Well, they might have stopped at 
a wayside shelter and waited in the hope of a 
passing vehicle. Or they might have decided to 
go back to the cabin and wait till next day. But 

200 



SINGING 201 

then they would not have been true campers. 
They did neither of these things. They did what 
camp girls always and everywhere do under like 
difficulties. They sang. And as they splashed 
along through the mud, past shelters, every gar- 
ment sopping and then dripping, they made a new 
song to suit the occasion, a song that has since 
been handed down in camp through each succeed- 
ing summer. The tune was from a Harvard 
football song: 

So with a song 

We march along 
With sturdy step and strong; 

In rain or shine 
We keep a steady line, 

We 're from Camp 

We 're from Camp . 

Camp singing is a means of meeting any kind 
of a situation, but a situation of discomfort or 
difficulty is apt to bring out more humor and 
originality. Mosquitoes, rain and mud are the 
themes of some of the cleverest camp songs. The 
summer of 1915 will long be remembered for 
its steady, continuous downfall of rain. This 
was a distinct disappointment in the camps. 
Every hike or excursion was held up by the 



202 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

weather. But what camp had a single complaint 
to record ? Instead, the weather was only a stim- 
ulus to a fresh crop of songs, some celebrating 
the rain, and others dedicated to the mosquitoes, 
which it brought in its train. 

In one camp's collection there is a song that 
brings to mind a vivid picture of a party of hikers 
rambling around in a field in a pouring rain, try- 
ing to get back to the road leading to another 
camp they wanted to visit, but finding themselves 
going round and round in a circle, while they 
were becoming more and more soaked every min- 
ute. While in this predicament, one girl, through 
whose head kept running the lively tune of the 
"Irish Washerwoman" started up with these 
words : 

Is the longest way round the shortest way home? 
Is the shortest way round the longest to roam? 
Is the wetter the rain the drier your dress? 
And if you should ask us, the answer is — yes! 

Catching the lively air they all took it up and 
some minutes later, having found the road they 
came marching — or rather jigging — to its accom- 
paniment in to the grounds of their camp neigh- 
bors. 

Another song came from a party coming down 



SINGING 203 

Mount Moosilauke, who lost the trail at the foot, 
leading back to camp, where they were expected in 
time for dinner. And while they were rambling 
around in the bushes for two hours, with no trail 
to be seen, a hot dinner was slowly getting cold 
back at camp and their appetites growing keener 
with each passing minute. There was nothing 
left but to sing. So, with a Princeton football 
song in mind, one of the party started, and the 
others finished, the ^'rambling song," a part of 
which goes: 

And when they did come down they got completely off 

the track, 
And did n't they ramble, they rambled, they rambled all 

around. 
They rambled till they found how far they had rambled 

in brambles. 
The way they got to camp again 't was fine ! 

Another time, a mountain party, who had spent 
an uncomfortable night in a barn that was some- 
what short of hay, added this song — to the tune 
of "Funiculi, Funicula" — to the camp collection: 



Chorus : 



All night long you hear the voices cry 
"Do not put your hay into my eye, 



204 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

I want to sleep, I want to sleep, 
I want to sleep, I want to sleep. 

How I wish the hay 

Were just a little bit more deep." 

Singing in girls' camps is like that in the col- 
leges, except that the college songs are perhaps 
more formal and occasional, while the camp songs 
reflect every experience of every-day life. For 
example the colleges have little outside of the 
songs celebrating athletic. Alma Mater and class 
spirit, while the camps go beyond general themes 
to individual experiences and adventures. Of 
these there are all kinds — epic as well as lyric. 
Most of them are dramatic. The best thing 
about them is the enthusiasm and spirit with 
which they are sung. The camp girls enjoy sing- 
ing their own songs. They sing them with en- 
joyment because they like to sing about experi- 
ences that are new and fresh, just as the boys 
going overseas preferred to sing about ^'hanging 
the Kaiser to a sour apple tree" rather than about 
the men of Harlech, out of a remote past. Some 
of these songs that deal with adventure or indi- 
vidual experiences make a permanent appeal and 
live on year after year, while others die, or lose 
their popularity and are finally dropped from the 



SINGING 205 

collection. The reason for this is that in the lat- 
ter case the song merely tells of a dramatic inci- 
dent, as time goes on that incident, or the char- 
acters in the drama are forgotten. While an- 
other song recording the same experience lives on 
and grows more and more popular because it re- 
flects the spirit — of endurance or cheerfulness or 
whatever it may be, that is recognized by the 
campers of all times. For example, here is a 
song to the tune of Dixie, that made a decided 
hit in a certain camp, because of a funny inci- 
dent, but was afterward dropped and forgotten: 

Up Moosilauke we were crawling, 

Puffing, scrambling, sometimes caUing, 
*'0h where, oh where, oh where is the top?" 
Fair Helen slips and then goes sprawling, 

Cries out faintly as she 's falling, 

" Oh when, oh when, oh when shall I stop?" 

Another one, recording the same experience, is 
as popular today as it was ten years ago : 

Onward and up we tramp today, 
No trouble or toil our feet can stay. 

Full of the true Camp grit 

We 're of the sort that never quit. 
Stony and steep may be the trail, 
Hearts and voices will never fail; 



206 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Our spirits are light 
For we know that tonight 
Our Camp we '11 hail. 

Besides singing about everyday experiences the 
campers have special songs for special occasions 
as well as the colleges. One type of these is the 
serenade which is used for every kind of occa- 
sion — for greetings and good-byes; to express 
good-will and comradeship with other camps ; and 
to celebrate achievement of individuals. They 
indulge in extravagant expressions, such as, "We 
shall never find your equal," which vary in degree 
from formality through admiration to burning 
affection. The camp serenade has been borrowed 
for the most part from the colleges, but the best 
camps are getting away from the more hackneyed 
type to those that are more genuine, borrowing 
less from the colleges and drawing upon their own 
originality. The following is one which is en- 
tirely original and a genuine tribute to the one to 
whom it was written : 

Not your twinkling eye, sir, 

Not your wit so keen; 
Not your manner jolly, 

Finest ever seen; 



SINGING 207 

Not your store of knowledge, 

Not your friendship true 
If you ask the reason, 

Mr. G., 'tis you. 

Another example is Camp Quinnibeck's sere- 
nade to Aloha Hive, a junior camp newly come to 
settle on their own lake : 

Aloha Hive, Aloha Hive, 

Come let us whisper in your ear; 

Quinnibeck is glad you 've come 
To buzz so near. 

Sweeter than the honey 

To the honey bee 
I love you, say you love me. 

Neighbors true on Lake Fairlee 
Honey bees a-buzzin' near, 

Buzzin' that we love to hear 
Dear Aloha Hive. 

Among the college serenades that are sung in 
all camps perhaps the most popular are these two : 

Ain't she neat, sweet, ha ha, ha ha, handsome and fair? 

She is a daisy, the girls all declare. 
She 's a high rolling lassie as well, 

Here comes 

Say don't she look swell? 



208 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

They say that she ain't got no style, 

She 's got style all the while, she 's got style all the 
while. 
They say that she ain't got no style, 

She 's got style all the while, all the while. 

There are many others, brought by the coun- 
cilors from their colleges and adopted by the 
campers to express the same spirit of good-will 
and fellowship, such as the following from Smith : 

There is a girl that 's known in all parts, 
Her name is and she 's won our hearts. 

Oh ! we 'd like to know a girl with more go. 
We '11 all stand by her to the end, oh ! 

and 

Whoop her up, whoop her up, whoop her up some more, 
is the girl Camp does adore. 

She 's such a peach, she 's won our hearts, 
She certainly plays the game. 

She is not rough, she is not tough, 
She gets there just the same. 

And from Vassar : 

There 's a girl we 're thinking of, 
H'm h'm h'm, ha! ha! ha! 
She 's a girl we surely love, 
And her name we '11 not forget, 
you can bet. 



SINGING 209 

Occasional songs at camp are used for celebra- 
tions like Intercamp day, birthdays and athletic 
events. The following represents the formal 
songs and was awarded the prize at the Intercamp 
celebration of 1916 to Camp Hanoum at Thet- 
ford,Vt.: 

Yo ho, girls! yo ho, girls, for all our camps today, 

We know, girls, we know, girls, we come each year to play. 

We skip and we hop with a jolly good will, 

We dance till we drop, having fun to our fill. 

Yo ho, girls ! yo ho, girls ! it 's Intercamp today. 

(Repeat.) 

Together, together, we join in hearty song. 

Forever, forever good campers we belong. 

We meet to compete for the fun of the game, 

We treat a defeat or a vict'ry the same. 

And never shall sever the ties that bind us strong. 

(Repeat.) 

Another Intercamp festival song: 

We join our voices now in song, 

Our hearts beat high v\dth joy that lives, 

And thrills, inspires and makes us strong, 

The joy that only Nature gives. 

We love the woods, the birds and flowers. 

The thirsting sun and the quenching rain. 

We '11 count with pleasure all the hours, 

Till with joy our camps may meet again. 



210 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Intercamp marching song: 

From the hills and the woods far and wide, 
From the camps that we each love the best, 
We are met here to march side by side, 
In the friendship of East and West. 

Chorus : 

Then, come, join our glad company, 

Good comrades a-frolicking together, 

We '11 sing to our life in the free 

As side by side along the road we march forever. 

March on, campers, march in array, 
Through all the bright years of endeavor. 
United in heart as today, 
Never parting our ranks shall sever. 

Another example of occasional songs is Aloha's 
Pledge to the U. S. A., as follows: 

Oh! Uncle Sammie, so tried and so true, 

We pledge the green and the white 

To the red, white and blue. 

And as we sit at home and knit 

(Why every minute) we will do our bit, 

But — ere we begin it. 

We will all give three cheers 

For our brave soldier boys 

As they go sailing far away. 

My country — oh! 'tis you. 



SINGING 211 

That Aloha girls true, 

Give their pledge to the old U. S. A. 

Reunions are occasions for special songs, as 
the following : 

We are a band of Alohaites, 
When summer comes around, 
Upon the shore of Morey's lake 
We '11 one and all be found. 
We meet together here today 
To greet the friends so true 
And give the cry, "Aloha banzai!'* 
Aloha, here 's to you. 

And though in festal garb we 're here, 

It v^rill be no surprise, 

If in the summer we appear 

In very different guise. 

We 're ready then for Moosilauke 

To reach its summit blue, 

And easily talk of a hundred mile walk 

And swimming Lake Morey too. 

When Tahoma's daughters gather anywhere 
There 's a place they think of, longing to be there; 
It 's the one and only place that they desire. 
Situated and celebrated in New Hampshire. 

Chorus : 

Going back, going back, going back from the spring to 
the fall, 



212 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Going back, going back, to the best old place of all; 
Going back, going back, to answer Tahoma's call, 
We '11 clear the track, as we go back, 
Going back is the best of all. 

Let 's go to Tahoma on the B (& M, 

Watching for old Connicut to appear around the bend, 

Rambling round the old place, full of jollity. 

Our location for celebration is there, you see. 

They are great at swimming, all those girls in brown, 
Likewise on the diamond they have won renown. 
Soon we '11 see them gathering, yelling every one, 
Something doing when we 're returning to Armington. 

Team songs are of the same character as the 
men's football songs from which many of them 
are borrowed, as: 

March, march on down the field, cheering Camp 



We 're out to win the game, so play hard and fast. 
We '11 give a long cheer for the brown and white. 
We 're out to win tonight 

Camp may fight to the end, but we will win. 

Yale song. 

Here is one sung to a rival team in the same 
camp: 

Blue team, blue team, I 've been thinking. 
What a good team you would be 



SINGING 213 

If you did n't let the white team 
Beat you up so easily. 

Another : 

Here comes the team of Camp, 

And a very, very good team too; 

They 're wonderfully good, and be it understood 

They Ve won victories not a few. 

Though they have n't been long here 

They can shoot and pass and cheer, and take a turn at 

umpiring the game. 
And they never, never make a foul. They 're never 

known to quail at the rattle of a yell. 

Spoken : 

What! Never? No, never. 

What! Never! Well — hardly ever. 

They never, never make a foul. 

Then give three cheers and one cheer more, 

Just watch our team rolling up the score; 

Then give three cheers and one cheer more. 

Watch Camp rolling up the score. 

In a typical camp collection are to be found a 
certain proportion of sentimental songs, express- 
ing loyalty to the camp, to the teams and love of 
the out-of-doors. Since many of the camps have 
not put their songs into print, only a few of these 
are available. 



214 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 
CAMP LOYALTY j 

Music— The Tale of the Turtle Dove— "Woodland" 

Oh, sing Wyonegonic, 

Fond memories be thine; 
Upon thy silver waters 

The stars of heaven shine. 
The music of thy breezes, 

What harmony more fine; 
Our loved Wyonegonic, 

Jewel of the pine. 

Beneath thine arching shadows 

The jeweled moonbeams play, 
Upon the verdant meadows 

Fair flowers greet the day. 
To thee thy loyal daughters, 

Their loving hearts resign, 
Our loved Wyonegonic, 

Jewel of the pine. 

(Tune: "All Through the Night") 
Gather, Girls of Winnetaska, at the close of day; 
Set the woodland echoes ringing, for the Green and Gray; 
'Round our campfire's flick'ring brightness. 
Join our songs with joy and lightness. 
Then, when stars are shining o'er us. 
Sing we Goodnight. 

(Tune: "Underneath the Stars") 
Through the whispering pines the stars are gleaming 
O'er the lake we hear the bugle calling, 



SINGING 215 

Silver moths are flying, 
Pals of mine, I 'm sighing, 

Sighing for the camp of which I 'm dreaming. 
Jack-o-lanterns on the birch tree branches, 
Soft light from the bungalow entrances, 
Campers sing and echo softly answers, 

In the bungalow Tahoma sings. 

In the bungalow the fire is gleaming, 
Glowing embers set us all a-dreaming. 

Now the night is growing, 
Taps are softly blowing, 

Campers to your tents you should be going. 
In the white tents campers all are sleeping, 
Brighter yet the smudge fire flames are leaping; 
Overhead the moon her watch is keeping. 

Underneath the stars Tahoma rests. 

(Tune: "Barcarolle"— Key of D) 
Our Aloha, dearest of all. 

It is to you we sing; 
Best of camps we come at your call 

And loud your praises ring. 
May we in the years to come 

Be ever loyal, true. 

Friendships of our summer home 

Bind us fast to you. 
Your spirit may we bear 

Through all the years of life. 



216 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Your influence may we share 

In work or play or strife. 
Praise we '11 bring to you, 

Aloha, we '11 sing to. 
Our Aloha, etc. 

(Tune: "The Orange and the Black"— Princeton) 
When the spell of lake and woodland 

And the glory of the sky, 
And the friendships of Tahoma 

Shall raise our spirits high; 
Then from camp shall grow our purpose 

To give what here we gain. 
For the world shall never call 

On Tahoma girls in vain. 

(Sung with fine effect to "Reveille" call) 
Oh, Camp QuinniWck! oh. Camp Quinnibeck! oh. Camp 

Quinnibeck forever! 
Oh, Camp Quinnibeck! oh. Camp Quinnibeck for aye! 
Here the sun shines longest. 
Here love grows the strongest, 
Here the summer hours 
Pass happiest away. 
Oh, Camp Quinnibeck, etc. 

(Tune: "Dear Old Horace Mann") 
On the shores of Lake Sebago, 

Nestling close among the trees. 
With its rolling lawns and woodlands 

Fanned by every gentle breeze. 



SINGING 217 

Lies the camp where we are joyful 

In our wholesome life so free, 
Where we work and play together, 

Lies our dear old H. N. C. 
O ! 't is here we grow athletic. 

Here we paddle, swim and row, 
And we spend our happy summers 
Round the genial camp-fire's glow; 
And we cheer with lusty voices, 

And we sing aloud in glee. 
For our hearts are ever loyal 

To our dear old H. N. C. 

(Tune: "Tipperary") 
Tired of dodging jitneys up in Roger William's town, 

Weary of Manhattan and of Boston's fair renown; 
Finding Dixie rather sultry, Texas pleasures few; 

I checked my trunk to Wellfleet, and I sang as I came 
through : 

Chorus : 

It 's a long way to Camp Chequesset, 

It 's a long way to go. 

It 's a long way to Camp Chequesset, 

And the dear old Bungalow. 

Good-by to the jitneys, farewell noisy town. 

It 's a long, long way to Camp Chequesset, 

But I 'm going down. 



218 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Coney Island 's lovely and old Dixie 's hard to beat, 
San Francisco's pleasant and the movies are a treat; 

Life is jolly anywhere on Narragansett Bay 

But I think of Camp Chequesset and I leave them all 

and say, — 
(Repeat Chorus.) By Pat. 

An anthology of songs of the various camps 
would comprise as many different subjects as an 
anthology of modern verse. Some of these, in- 
cluding trips and hikes, and everyday experi- 
ences are to be found in the following collection: 

SWIMMING 

(Tune: "Rufus, Rastus Johnsing Brown") 

I'm going to learn how to dive, that's all; 

I don't care how flat I fall, 

I don't care how tired I get, 

I 'm going to keep on trying till I 'm called Annette; 

I don't care if they laugh at me 

Or if my legs go flopping round so gracefully, 

I don't care how flat I fall, 

I 'm going to learn how to dive, that 's all ! 

NATURE STUDY 

The mushroom is a vegetable, 

To select them few are able; 

You can't tell them when you meet them, 

You can't tell them till you eat them. 



SINGING 219 

If in heaven you awaken 
Then you '11 know you were mistaken, 
And the kind that you have eaten 
Were n't the kind you ought to eat. 

The violet demure and pretty 
Grows in bunches in the city, 
Where young men with six-inch collars 
Pay for them their papa's dollars. 
What they spend for them and roses 
Gracious goodness only knows-es; 
Roses vanish when you marry, 
Better get them while you can. 

LAUNDRY 

(Tune: ''All Through the Night") 

One lone middie I Ve been wearing 

All through the week, 
Other people's duds I 'm sharing, 

All through the week. 
When my wash comes back tomorrow, 

There will be an endless borrow 
And I '11 view my pile with sorrow 

All through the week. 

(Tune: "My Harem") 
Oh, our laundry, our laundry, 

That lives across the sea, 
And there never is a minute 

That our middies are not in it. 



220 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

'Cross the lake we row, and get back 

Late for dinner time, 
But at last we have clean middies 

And each middie costs a dime. 
Oh, our laundry, our laundry, 

It 's shocking to believe 
But the streaks of blue 

Would make you wish that you — 
Tra-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la. 



GETTING FAT 

(Tune: "Good-bye, Girls, I 'm Through") 

Come on, girls, get thin, 
Train down that double chin; 
Your waist must shrink each day, 
Your hips must fade away. 
We 're through with Ely ices 
The captain can't entice us. 
To exercise we 're bound, 
We 're losing, we 're losing, 
Zip! There goes another pound. 

Come on, girls, get fat! 
You can't go home like that; 
Your arms must be more round, 
Your face needs one more pound. 
Let 's take a walk to to\vn 
To drink a soda down. 
And buy an ice-cream cone. 



SINGING 221 

We 're gaining, we 're gaining, 
Zip! Here comes another pound. 



THE FORD 

A bed without a mattress, 

Or an iron without a board, 

Is not so bad, I Ve often heard, 

As a camp without a Ford. 

There is speed, there is speed. 

In Camp 's Ford there is speed, great speed. 



SINGING 

(Tune: "Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield") 

Oh, some folks say dat a camper can't sing, 
Way down yonder at Camp 



But dat fellow he don't know anyt'ing, 
Way down yonder at Camp , 

Chorus : 

So it 's, amen, sing on, 

Way down yonder at Gamp . 



Oh, one takes the tenor, and the other alto, 
Way down yonder at Camp ; 

If dat ain't singin', why I don't know, 
Way down yonder at Camp . 



222 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

BUGS 
(Key of F— from "Pinafore") 

Every night upon my wall 

Species of genus spiders crawl, 
And thfey all seem to pick me 

When they choose their haunts, 
And so do their sisters and their cousins and their aunts. 
And so do their sisters and their cousins and their aunts; 
Their sisters and their cousins. 
Whom they reckon up by dozens, 
And their aunts. 

(Tune: "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp") 

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the bugs are marching, 
Up and down the tents they go, 

Some are green and some are black, 

And the spiders do not lack. 
And the daddy long-legs they go marching too. 

RAIN 
(Tune: "Clip Clop Clop"— Key of B minor) 

Drip drop drop, drip drop drop, 

Hark to the rain! 
It leaks through the tent flaps 

And you tie them in vain 
Trickle, trickle, trickle, clammily 

Right down my neck, 
For my rain hat and slicker don't just quite connect. 



SINGING 223 

Slip slop slop; slip slop slop, 

Right through the mud, 
Till you land on a rock 

With a dull sickening thud; 
Never mind your troubles 

Just come to the Hive 
There 's a big fire to cheer you 

If you 're still alive. 

("Rain Song"— Key of C) 
Every day we Ve been in camp it 's been raining, 

It 's been raining almost all the time; 
But we wear a rubber hat and a raincoat 

And we slip as up the hill we climb. 

Chorus : 

So we walk, slush, slush. 

And we dance and we sing a cheerful song; 

For the rain may fall by day, 

And the rain may fall by night, 

Our shoes may leak 

But our feet are water tight. 

For we 're from Aloha 

And we 're all right. 

Every mom at 2 a. m. we Ve been awakened 

By the patter, patter of the rain, 
But by day we never know it 's raining. 

And we keep on going just the same. 



224 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

CONSERVATION 

Gin a body feed a body 

On a loaf of rye, 
Should a patriotic body 

Disconsolately cry. 
Ilka loaf that 's fifty-fifty 

Is bringing victory nigh; 
So save the wheat in fashion thrifty 

And glory in the rye. 

In conservation's train there 's comin' 

Freedom for the world, 
Food that 's saved is food that 's fightin' 

Where the flag 's unfurled. 
What 's discomfort to a body 

If we our wants supply? 
Behold a world democracy 

Comin' through the rye. 

We Ve got to feed the men now fighting 

And feed their babes and wives, 
We 've got to give a word of comfort 

Where Teuton outrage thrives. 
Right cheerfully our men and women 

Will now their wants supply, 
We '11 save the wheat and then see freedom 

Comin' through the rye. 



SINGING 225 

HONORS 

I have a little headband that is made of ribbon green, 
And on the band the things I Ve done are plainly to be 

seen 
I 'm very, very proud to have it placed upon my head, 
I can hardly bear to take it off before I go to bed. 

ADVENTURE 
(Tune: "Old English Air"--Key of D) 

Come, Ruth and Sue, 

And Helen and Lou, 

The river trip 's today; 

Come leave your hut, 

The Connecticut 

Is calling you away. 
While we are singing the country round 
Echo is answering back the sound, 
Naught but mirth and joy be found 

On Aloha's holiday. 
With a hey for the paddle ! 

Ho for the Manor, 
Hey for Aloha, too! 
Heigho, heigho. Aloha! 

(Tune: "Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet") 

Put on your old camp sweater. 

With its big white letter 

And we '11 all go out for a climb. 



226 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

For no matter what the weather, 
When Aloha 's out together, 
There will be one jolly time. 

We *re off for a t-r-a-m-p o 'er the h-i-1-l-s, 
In bloomers green and middies gray, our d-r-e-s-s, 
So get your can-t-e-e-n, why don't you come along, 
We Ve our 1-u-n-c-h in our packs and we 're a merry 
throng. 

We *re off for a paddle on the lake, in our gray canoes so 

trim. 
We '11 cruise among the islands there, and then we '11 take 

a swim; 
We '11 cook our lunch on a sandy beach, we '11 cook our 

supper too. 
We '11 pitch our tents in a shady grove, — ^We 're a Win- 

netaska Crew! 

We climbed up Moosilauke 

And spent the night on top, 
And then next day came down again 

That lengthy six mile drop. 
There is height, there is height, 
To that mountain climb. 
There is height, great height. 

We climbed up and down 

The ladders of Lost River's spooky caves, 
We would have gone to Hades, 

But our lives we wished to save. 



SINGING 227 

There were thrills, there were thrills, 

In Lost River's caves, 

There were thrills, great thrills. 

We went to Mr. Johnson's 

And we slept up in the hay. 
And after spending a prickly night 

We all resumed our way. 
There was rest, there was rest, 
In the Johnson bam there was rest, great rest. 

We started at the top of the flume 

And slid down to the foot. 
And when we did get up again, we were soaked, much 
soaked. 

How all the tourists looked. 
You just bet your life we were soaked, much soaked. 

We tramped along the dusty road 

And often asked, "How far 
To reach the Old Man of the Mount?" 

We hailed each passing car. 
Some said, "Ten," some said, "Six," 
Some said, "Three or four," 
But at last, no more. 

Forgetting all our blisters. 

And our knees and ankles sore, ' 
You bet that we were glad to be 

At Camp again once more. 



228 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

We are glad, we are glad 
To see you all again, 
We are glad, most glad. 

(Tune: "The Last Long Mile") 

Oh, it 's not the pack that is lighter going back, 

Nor the paddle that you handle, 
Nor the gray canoes in which you make your cruise, 

That makes your camping life seem worth the candle; 
And it 's not the sup from the old tin cup. 

Nor the butter without ice, 
Nor the smoky cocoa, stirred with a burnt- wood poker, 

It 's the last boiled rice ! 

— /. B. M. 

STAYING AT HOME— *'SOUR GRAPES" 

(Tune: "Cheer up, Liza") 

You went away and thought you left us, 
Sad and alone. 

But you bet your boots that we were 
Glad to stay home. 

Chorus : 

Cheer up, hikers, 
Make no mistake. 
Don't be jealous, 
M'm — M'm-m. 

You rode to Woodsville in a day-coach 
Chuck full of grime. 



SINGING 229 

We in a Packard went there also, 
Gee! It was fine! 

You were bunking in close quarters 
In stuffy huts, 

While we had six beds apiece 
And slept de Luxe. 

You were eating beans and sinkers, 

All the time, i 

While Aunt Delia cooked us specials 

That were divine. 

You were slackers, you were pikers, 
All the day. 

While as farmerettes we sweated 
Pitching hay. 

You saw the sunset from the summit 
Of Mount Monroe. 

We played the uke (ukelele) and from the spring- 
board 
Saw it — also. 

You went away and thought you left us, 

Lonesome and blue, 

But you bet that we were glad to 

Get rid of you. 

Chorus : 

Cheer up, hikers, make no mistake. 
Don't be jealous, 'T was sour grapes! 



230 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

LEAVING CAMP 

(Tune, "Tramp, tramp, tramp") 

Groan, groan, groan, the girls are groaning, 

And we '11 tell you who they are. 

They 're the campers all in skirts 

And the dressed-up feeling hurts 

And we hear the sound of wailing from afar. 

Pack, pack, pack, the girls are packing. 

And we'll tell you who they are. 

They 're the girls of Quinnibeck, 

Piling clothes up to their neck 

And we hear the words they 're using from afar. 

These selections, taken from the collections of 
a few camps, will serve to show the spirit of the 
campers as reflected in their songs. The singing 
of camp girls is utterly spon^neous and breaks 
forth at the most unexpected times and places. 
One of my strongest recollections of a certain sum- 
mer is being greeted at the call of the early bugle 
with the strains from a near-by tent of ''These 
Bones Shall Rise Again," sung with surprising 
spirit for such an early hour. Singing helps to 
cheer the dull spots and to pass the time while 
waiting for the train. A party from one of the 
older camps who were travelling in Europe with 



SINGING 231 

their leader before the war, tell of finding them- 
selves alone in an empty train in Bavaria going 
toward a quaint medieval town and singing camp 
songs for an hour. Another time they gave their 
camp cheer from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral 
in London. Thus the spirit of camp singing has 
travelled around the world. 



CHAPTER XIV 

WHAT COUNTS WITH CAMP GIRLS 

IN the first place, there are many things that 
have great value elsewhere that do not count 
at camp. For example, what you have 
counts not at all. What you can do counts for 
but little unless you bring it out for the good of 
the camp. Who you are at home makes not the 
slightest difference, and as to what you wear, you 
are in nowise different from the girl next to you. 
What matters chiefly to the newcomer is to make 
good with her fellow-campers, for upon that, after 
all, depends very largely her rating at camp. 
There are certain definite things that camp girls 
stand for, and the girl who fails in these is not 
likely to win a big place for herself in the camp. 
Among the foremost of these is achievement. It 
is not what you can do at home, but the way you 
go in for things and win out, at camp. Kathleen 
knows this, and that is why she spends every 

spare moment on the tennis court, or going around, 

232 



WHAT COUNTS 233 

racquet in hand looking for a partner. She wants 
to work up her stroke, so that she may count for 
something at camp. 

The fact is, camp girls like a girl who goes out 
to win in much the same way that their brothers 
do at college. It is the best way for a camper to 
show what is in her. For if she keeps herself in 
the background, how is anyone ever going to know 
her? She may be a fine girl all right, but if 
other people do not know it, she will have but few 
friends. This all but happened in the case of 
Alice Jones, a quiet but forceful girl, when she 
suddenly came into prominence through her plays 
in basket-ball. She came on the team to help out 
in an emergency, and the cool way in which she 
made basket after basket suggested to the girls 
that there must be more to Alice than they had 
yet discovered. When they came to know her 
better and found her a good sport as well as a 
good friend, she became one of the most popular 
girls in camp. So the new girl is encouraged to 
come out and try things, even though she has 
never done them before, and show what is in her. 

What counts with camp girls more than a great 
many other things, is whether you are a good 
sport. By that they mean whether you can keep 



234 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

good natured whether you win or lose; whether 
you can take whatever comes with a smile; and 
whether you can think enough about the other 
person when you are out to win for yourself. 
Little Peggy, who came near winning the junior 
honor for walking, had a hard lesson on this 
point. All summer long Peggy was nip and tuck 
with Dorothy in her walking records. And for 
that reason, she never wanted Dorothy to be out 
of her sight, for fear she would add a few more 
miles to her credit. Peggy was determined she 
was going to win the letter. But the trouble was 
she forgot to be a good sport. She not only kept 
Dorothy in hot water all the time but she forgot 
that to win honors in walking one had to be a 
good sport all the time. She must walk in good 
form, keep an even pace and not keep sprinting 
every little while to get ahead of the others. She 
must be good company on a trip and finish up in 
style, coming in to camp with head erect and a 
smile. Peggy had failed in all this. So it was 
a hard blow to her when the honors were given 
out to hear the camp leader announce that Doro- 
thy had the junior honor in walking, because of 
her record for good form and fine spirit on every 
trip as well as the number of miles. 



WHAT COUNTS 235 

Another kind of a good sport is a person who 
has plenty of grit and sticks to a thing with a 
camper's determination, no matter what the ob- 
stacles, like little Ann Louise — a plucky little 
soul, though no one has suspected it — who won 
the whole camp by going out in deep water and 
trying it again just after she had been rescued 
from a frightful experience where she thought 
she was swallowing the lake. 

Another way to show what a good sport you 
are is to practise self-restraint. In one camp the 
best sport was a girl who had to go everywhere in 
a wagon. A very popular older girl in another 
camp was ^'game" about refraining from candy. 
A good camper knows the danger of too much 
candy, and besides this girl had just recovered 
from an illness and advised not to eat any at all. 
About this time some well-meaning friends who 
did not understand sent her more than ten pounds 
of bon bons. Now that was a real temptation — 
ten pounds of candy in your tent. But it hap- 
pened to be in the hands of the right girl, for she 
was game to tHe finish and never touched a piece, 
but brought it all to the table and passed it around 
the camp. 

In camp life there are many opportunities to 



236 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

show what kind of a sport you are, not only on 
trips and camping parties, but right along every 
day in your tent, you are put to the test as to 
whether you are a good tent mate. 

The girl who is liked by the camp is one who 
dares to be herself and who stands on her own 
feet. She is not swept along by the crowd, nor 
does she try to be like someone else. Her friend- 
liness is natural. She is not like the girl about 
whom one camper was heard to say to another, 'T 
can't seem to like Gladys. She 's a nice girl, all 
right, but she tries too hard.'' 

Another thing that counts is whether you are 
dependable, for a slacker is never popular. The 
girl who is put on a committee and then never 
shows up when the committee meets, is not likely 
to get very far in her camp life, nor is the girl 
who leaves putting her tent in order to her tent 
mates while she offers her services to a councilor 
for something a little more conspicuous. If you 
begin a thing you are supposed to finish it, and if 
you take responsibility you must make good. 
One girl who had a splendid record and was very 
popular fell down on this very thing, and because 
she went off on a trip when she had taken re- 
sponsibility for some domestic work without find- 



WHAT COUNTS 237 

ing a substitute, she failed to be elected as an 
Honor Girl. 

Another thing that counts if you want to get on 
at camp is to be a good mixer. A girl who is a 
good mixer has a friendly and broad-minded at- 
titude toward people. She likes people, and she 
can be good friends with more than one girl at a 
time. She is not afraid of what people are going 
to think of her, but she goes right ahead and takes 
it for granted that they will be friendly. Some 
girls are too self-conscious to be friendly. At 
camp a girl learns to overcome that feeling and 
to forget herself, and one of the finest things she 
gains from the whole summer is the power to 
make friends. She gains a great deal too from 
working with other people, and after a whole 
summer of intimate association with other girls 
in work and play she knows more about how to 
get on with people than many a college girl. The 
whole secret of it is in learning to forget herself 
and think of other people. 

That leads up to another mark of a good 
camper, which they call community spirit, that is 
doing things for the camp. A real camper is 
always on hand when there are things to be done, 
without waiting to be sent for. She volunteers to 



238 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

make sandwiches, helps with meals on the trips 
instead of wandering off to see the country while 
somebody else does the work ; and is ready to take 
responsibility without having it thrust upon her. 
Every day brings some opportunity to contribute 
something for the good of the community, whether 
it is writing for the paper, taking part in a play 
or helping with the costumes, or merely joining in 
with the songs and cheers that help to hearten the 
team or add to the joyousness of the camp life. 

All these things that are the marks of a good 
camper might be summed up in the one term, 
Camp Spirit, which has a world of meaning for 
camp girls everywhere. A college girl once said 
at a camp reunion that camp spirit means more 
than college spirit. It is hard to define camp 
spirit. It means loyalty, but it is bigger than 
that. A camp girl once said that if we could take 
the best qualities of all of us and put them into 
one girl, we would have camp spirit personified. 
But I 'm afraid we would n't like her. A girl 
who has camp spirit is very human. She may 
fail in some points, but she has qualities that en- 
able her to contribute to the happiness of the 
whole camp. 

It is the custom in nearly every camp to give 



WHAT COUNTS 239 

some form of recognition for camp spirit in con- 
nection with the final honors at the end of the 
summer. In some camps it is a loving cup 
awarded to the best all-round camper, the quali- 
fications for which include camp spirit. In 
others it is the camp letter. In one camp the 
honor for camp spirit is a big camp letter of spe- 
cial design, to be worn on the sweater, which is 
awarded by the girls and councilors by popular 
vote. The girls in this camp understand that it 
is not the popular girl they are voting for, nor for 
a particular ffiend, but for the girl who has added 
the most to the life of the camp. And often the 
girl who wins the vote has the surprise of her 
life, for a girl with true camp spirit is usually un- 
conscious of any such attainment. 

Among these girls who have won the honor for 
camp spirit in the past there are many different 
types. For it makes no difference whether a girl 
is athletic or gifted or popular or whether she is 
not any of these things, if she has the qualities 
that will make her a fine influence in the camp 
life. Here are a few examples. 

Eleanor Barber was a girl who was not ath- 
letic. On the contrary, she was not allowed to 
go in swimming, by the doctor's orders, she was 



240 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

restricted to two miles in walking, she was ad- 
vised not to ride, and all because of a weak back. 
Of course she could not climb mountains. Yet 
by the unanimous vote of the girls and councilors 
she was awarded the honor for camp spirit. If 
you knew Eleanor you would not wonder. The 
chief thing about her was that she was such a 
good sport. She longed to do the things the 
others did. Her back troubled her a good deal, 
and at times she was quite discouraged. But no 
one ever knew that but herself, for she joked her 
way along through the whole summer, and her 
dry humor made her a delight to the camp. Her 
droll remarks are quoted yet in that camp. While 
she was teasing the others she was only amusing 
herself, and trying to forget her troubles. So she 
was the most surprised person in miles around 
when they gave her the vote for the highest honor 
in camp. 

Another girl who won the same honor the next 
year was decidedly athletic. Barbara Sands was 
a girl who went in for everything, and she did 
everything well. She worked hard for things, but 
at the end of the summer she won honors in two 
sports and had an array of lovely things to take 
home that she had made in the crafts department 



,^ 






' ^ '^ 


H 





WHAT COUNTS 241 

that would excite the envy of any camper. She 
was always a stand-by, too, when there was any- 
thing to be done, from making posters to taking 
the life Boat. If only achievement counted, then 
the honor might well have gone to Barbara. But 
that was not what did it. The best thing about 
Barbara was that with all her achievements, she 
was just a simple, natural girl of sixteen, who put 
her best into everything she did and was friendly 
to everybody. The whole camp loved her, but 
she was entirely unconscious of her popularity. 
And that was what the campers of that summer 
decided was true camp spirit. 

Among the votes cast there are always some 
for the quiet, thoughtful type of girl, though she 
may not be out-going enough to make an impres- 
sion on the whole camp, especially a large one. 
However, this kind of a girl was once the choice 
in a small camp. It was Lois Carr, a girl who 
was quiet and steady, always dependable, doing 
things for others in a quiet way and never think- 
ing of herself. It is always a pleasure to see a 
modest girl gain recognition, and it was quite a 
tribute to the discriminating power of the camp- 
ers that they recognized her as the one who best 
exemplified camp spirit. 



242 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Just the opposite type was Jean, a girl who 
went into everything, head over heels, and was 
the personification of everything that is lively and 
gay. Yet she won the hearts of everyone by her 
winning personality and her willingness to give 
herself to the crowd, and was voted the one whp 
had brought the greatest happiness to her fellow 
campers. 

Frances Gray, the choice in a large camp not 
many summers ago, is perhaps the most nearly 
typical camp spirit girl of them all. Frances was 
chosen by more than a hundred girls and coun- 
cilors because she was a person whom everybody 
could understand. She appealed to the older and 
younger element alike, because she was the most 
human, the most like themselves of the whole 
crowd. Now this was not merely popularity. 
Frances was genuinely friendly and interested in 
other people. She did become popular, it is true, 
but it only served to test her character. For as 
she became popular, various cliques tried to pull 
her in, but she steadfastly refused and gave her- 
self instead to the whole camp, to the shy little 
girl and the popular big girl alike. She went 
in for sports heart and soul, encouraged the 
younger girls and was so genuinely beloved that 



WHAT COUNTS 243 

her name has been handed down in that camp 
for several summers. 

If we had time we might tell of hundreds of 
girls who made good at camp, who had real camp 
spirit, but never won an honor. For after all it 
is only one girl out of fifty or a hundred who car- 
ries away this expression from the camp, while the 
other forty-nine or ninety-nine have all been con- 
tributing their share to its happiness and it is 
their camp spirit that makes the camp such a joy- 
ous happy place for all. And in the end the girl 
who carries off the honor has no real advantage 
over the everyday camp girl who keeps on striv- 
ing and growing more lovable and more depend- 
able every day. 



CHAPTER XV 

HONORS 

IT is a dramatic moment at Camp B, the cli- 
max of the whole summer. The leading 
person in the drama is the camp leader, who 
holds in her hand the symbols of honors about to 
be conferred. The scene is a gaily decorated ban- 
quet hall and the time about eight-thirty in the 
evening of one of the closing days of camp. The 
room is resplendent in a mass of decoration. 
Green boughs are hung from the ceiling and a 
wealth of clematis, fern and golden glow fill in 
the formerly bare spaces and form center-pieces 
on the festive looking tables. Seated all the way 
up and down these long tables are rows of sun- 
burned faces and sparkling eyes reflecting the 
soft glow of the candle light. The singing and 
toasts that have kept up with vigor between 
courses, from grape fruit to ice cream, have come 
to an end. The last applause has died away. 
In this tense moment there is a silence that the 

244 



HONORS 245 

guest at the head table would have thought un- 
believable a moment ago. Up and down the uni- 
form rows of white middies, backs straighten up 
and ears are strained. Friends of Marion Gray 
cast significant glances in her direction, while 
Marion wears an anxious, strained look. In a re- 
mote corner of the room sits Mary Hill, her close 
rival in swimming, trying to look unconscious, 
her hand clenched tight in one of her tent mates\ 
Then in one brief instant the tension is released. 
A name is called, there is a stir at a certain table, 
and Marion Gray is pushed forward amid a storm 
of applause and advances with beaming face to 
the head table to receive the camp letter for water 
sports. And as she comes back to her seat, grasp- 
ing the prize of a whole summer, her name rings 
out in a serenade, ^'Ain't she neat, ha ha, sweet, 
ha ha, handsome and fair." And Marion, blush- 
ing at the ovation and overcome with the honor, 
sinks hastily into her seat among admiring 
friends. Now that the spell is broken, other 
names follow, in more or less rapid succession — 
for honors in crafts, in riding, in walking, in ten- 
nis, in camp craft and life saving; and the un- 
painted rafters of the old dining-room that have 
looked down on many a scene like this in the 



246 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

past, ring with shouts and outbursts of joy as one 
camper after another is called out, it may be from 
obscurity into the limelight of camp favor through 
some attainment. And when the last one to be 
called comes forward to receive the honor known 
as Camp Spirit, the highest honor of all, when 
Marie Stearns, a sunburned, happy-looking girl 
at the end table, startled at the sound of her name 
is thrust out by her friends and comes forward 
half puzzled to know what it all means, the ex- 
citement and applause reach the highest pitch. 
It rises and falls and rises again, and then the 
benches are pushed back and a crowd swarms 
around the half-laughing, half-crying Marie, and 
the banquet is over. 

The custom of having a banquet at the end of 
the summer began away back in the days when 
camps were new. When you first come to camp 
it is a far away event at the end of the summer 
that is looked forward to by old and new girls 
alike as the goal of all their efforts. It is in 
their minds as they work at crafts, as they watch 
their records grow in swimming and walking and 
as they strive for neatness in tents and bunga- 
lows. This is because the banquet symbolizes 
the honors for which they are striving. 



HONORS 247 

The final week in such a camp is full of ex- 
citing events. Days of field sports and water 
sports, tennis tournaments, try-outs for riding, a 
craft exhibition and a final play follow one an- 
other in rapid succession. It is then that tardy 
craft workers stay overtime and ambitious swim- 
mers try to pass off another stroke with the hope 
of winning a high rank or the coveted letter. 

Not all camps have banquets, nor have all the 
same form of honors; but nearly every camp has 
some form of recognition at the end of the season 
for those who have made good in the camp's ac- 
tivities, though the form may be different in every 
camp. There are loving cups for the larger 
achievements ; medals and ribbon badges for ath- 
letics; head bands as emblems for character at- 
tainment; paddles for proficiency in canoeing; 
and banners or sheepskins for order in tents or 
bungalows. Many of the older camps have held 
to the custom of awarding the camp letter to be 
worn on the sweater, after the example of the col- 
leges, in recognition of attainment in sports and 
crafts and in character development. This honor 
is held in high esteem in certain camps and to 
wear the camp letter is as great an honor as to 
have been decorated. 



248 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

The ways of measuring success vary in differ- 
ent camps, too, for each one has its own standard 
of values. One camp, for example, awards its 
honors for a different thing every year, so that 
the honor may always be given for achievement 
unconsciously gained. Some camps merely give 
prize awards at the end of the season, based on 
general observation of the camper's progress. 
Others have try-outs at the end of the season and 
base the honors on the results of competitions on 
water sports day and field day. While many of 
the best camps have adopted the point system, by 
which they keep a record of each girl's progress 
and achievement, either on a chart, posted in 
sight or in a book kept for the purpose, or as in 
the case of Camp Sargent, one of the older camps, 
make use of both. But whatever the method, the 
history of camps shows that the honors are usually 
based on achievement in three distinct lines — in 
sports, in crafts and in character development. 
And it is significant of the character standards of 
the girls' camp that in most camps the highest 
honor is awarded to the girl who has made good 
in spirit as well as attainment. 

Since the point system will be of interest to 
many readers, examples are given below from 









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HONORS 249 

camps having charts worked out in detail. Ac- 
cording to this plan a certain value is attached to 
each activity — ^that is, a certain number of points. 
Each unit of work, for which a girl receives a 
cross on the chart represents a point, points, or a 
fraction of a point, according to the place of the 
activity in the scale of values adopted by the 
camp. An example of scales of values is shown 
on the Report of Individual below. Perhaps 
these charts will explain themselves, but in mak- 
ing up the complete record and awarding honors, 
there are other things to be taken into considera- 
tion. The chart is merely a more or less auto- 
matic record of definite achievement. In making 
the complete record there should be recognition of 
effort and improvement. In some activities, too, 
the spirit of the competitor counts. Take for ex- 
ample, walking. Two girls have covered the 
same distance and have the same record on the 
chart. But one girl has not improved in form in 
her walking, and she has allowed her eagerness to 
add to her record to make her an indifferent com- 
rade on the road and a ^'poor sport. '^ So the real 
test of a girl's attainment is what she has gotten 
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effort and improver 

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her walking, and she i 

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test of a girl's attainment is what sh 
out of the activity-how it has devel 

well as how she has mastered it. 



indi 



250 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

sports she has not learned the lessons of fair play 
and good sportsmanship : if she cannot respect an 
opponent and smile at victory or defeat, she has 
not won the honor, however high her record on 
the chart. 

Few camps have gone so far as to send home 
a detailed record of the attainment of the indi- 
vidual, but we have some examples, one of which 
is given below. This is not sent in the same spirit 
as that of a school report, but merely to give the 
camper and her friends a written record of what 
she has accomplished; and it has proved very 
gratifying to both. 

REPORT OF INDIVIDUAL 

No. Points 
Attainable Attained 

ARTS AND CRAFTS 
Hand Crafts 5 

Basketry, Wool Embroidery 
Block printing, Miscellaneous 

Dancing 5 

Nature Work 2 

Identification 

Leaf printing 

Camp Craft 4 

Making and breaking camp 
Cookery 



HONORS 251 

No. Points 
Attainable Attained 



PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT 10 
Order 
Hygiene 
Posture 

SPORTS 

Tennis ] 

Baseball ^Any 2 5 

PaddlingJ 

Basket Ball 5 

Riding or Walking 5 

fForm Canoe Tests 

SwimmingJ Ornamental Diving 5 

1 Speed 



NATIONAL SERVICE 

Gardening 5 

Wigwagging 1 

Life-saving 5 

Forestry 2 

Red Cross 12 

Knitting 

Gauze 



COMMUNITY SERVICE 

Dramatics 3 

Spark 3 

General Service 

Directors : 



252 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Next to the honor for Camp Spirit the greatest 
distinction in some camps is to be elected to be an 
Honor Girl, a rank signifying that a girl has 
proved herself trustworthy; that she has good 
judgment; that she can take responsibility; and 
that she stands for the camp ideals and can be 
counted on to uphold its discipline. To be an 
Honor Girl a girl must possess natural leader- 
ship. These qualities are recognized by other 
girls and she is elected, in some camps by other 
honor girls, in others by a joint vote of honor 
girls and councilors. The election of new honor 
girls in the middle of the summer is almost as 
thrilling as the banquet itself. 

Having given an account of the honors and the 
banquet, we have now come to the end of the sum- 
mer, when, all the trunks having been swept away 
to the station and breakfast choked down in ex- 
citement, the campers are packed into automobiles, 
piled high with suitcases and tennis racquets, 
and whirled away to the station. On the hot little 
platform they await the down train. Most un- 
natural they look, as they stand there in groups, 
uncomfortable in skirts that are too tight and heels 
that are too high; a contrast to the few girls in 



HONORS 253 

bloomers, who are staying behind. It is not ex- 
actly a cheerful occasion, and there are teary eyes 
when it comes time to say good-by, and clinging 
arms as the train appears in sight. It is most 
affecting, and so it is no wonder that a mere man, 
connected with one camp, deeply moved, but un- 
able to be of any help, resorted to a stray sign 
which he found near the station, and walked up 
and down the platform holding out its warning, 

KEEP COOL AND DRY. 

As the train pulls out from the station, half a 
dozen figures in bloomers run down to the farthest 
end of the platform and mount a ladder leading 
to a tower, from which they can wave till the last 
minute. One girl has brought the bugle. On 
the rear platform of the last car, a loyal band 
stands huddled together, and as the train passes 
by the tower they give the camp cheer. And as 
they glide on into the narrowing distance, they 
wave the camp banner, and keep on waving until 
the train rounds a bend and they are lost to sight. 
And this, at last is the end of the summer in the 
girls' camp. 



CHAPTER XVI 

CAMP PERIODICALS 

THE story of a camp season in almost any 
kind of a camp is to be found in its log. 
The log is a record of the camp activities 
written faithfully day by day by the girls and 
councilors. In many camps, however, the liter- 
ary ambitions outgrow the mere record of events, 
and then there appears the camp paper, which in 
some camps takes the form of an annual, and in a 
great many others with which we are familiar, it 
is a weekly sheet devoted to various accounts of 
the camping events, written by girls and council- 
ors, reviewing the week from all sorts of angles, 
and often giving one a chance to see oneself in 
the eyes of others. In some camps the paper is 
preserved in its original form and read aloud 
around a camp fire, or in canoes out on the lake, 
or in some other romantic spot. In the larger 
camps it has of late expanded into a formidable 
news weekly, with a variety of departments, such 

254 



CAMP PERIODICALS 255 

as editorial; sporting page; head-lined articles; 
jokes; advertisements; advice to campers. 

The periodicals have a variety of names. 
Some have significant titles such as "Wyone- 
gonic Loon"; ^'Sargent Half-Moon"; ^'Tahoma 
Spark"; "Cowassett (Sea-Shore) Netha"; "Alta- 
mont Echo"; ''Waldon Splash"; ''Highland Na- 
ture Campfire"; or humorous, as ''Aloha Scamp 
Spirit," and "Aloha Club Wash" (everything 
comes out in the wash). The subjects for spe- 
cial articles in their columns have to do with every 
phase of camp life. A few of them are presented 
below. 

GOING TO CAMP 

It was the tug Columbia 

That sailed the summer sea. 

And the campers were merry and brimful of joy; 

Their voices rang out with glee. 

Blue was the sea on that summer's day, 
And blue was the sky above. 
A fast true blue were the hearts of girls 
As they drew near the camps they 'd love. 

At last to its port the Columbia came 
And glad were those maidens there. 
For on went bloomers, middies and ties 
And down went the campers' hair. 



256 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Quickly they learnt what things to do 
The rules and the regulations, 
And it wasn't long ere these city girls 
Relished the camp's good rations. 

The tests they passed with int'rest keen 
In boat, canoe and lake. 
In tennis, and track, and basketball, 
They strove all the records to break. 

The hikes around the charming lake. 

The trips in our canoes 

Were some of the jaunts that gave us great joy — 

Which most, it is hard to choose. 

The water fete, the pageant fine, 
The works of Campers' Day, 
Were all a success, so 't is often said, 
The very best way to play. 

And there were times as happy too, 
Times we '11 ne'er forget, 
Campfires, an Upside-down Day, 
Remain in our memories yet. 

But all too soon the summer ends, 
Comes all too soon the night; 
We 're sorry and glad for the great event, 
The night at the campfire bright. 



CAMP PERIODICALS 257 

We sit around the crackling blaze 

We list, with hearts aglow 

While medals and honors, and head bands are won. 

And we are glad that it 's so. 

So sped the times at H. N. C. 

In the summer just gone by; 

May our friends and comrades join in our song 

With their hearts, so loyally. 

"Long may the camp, where we learn to live, 
Where we meet and make friends so dear; 
Enjoy the success it so richly deserves 
And continue to spread good cheer!" 

Highland Nature Campfire. 



INITIATION 

July 11. — The eventful day dawned bright and clear. 
The old girls racked their brains for things to make the 
new girls do, for this was their last chance. . . . When 
the new girls arrived at the dining hall for supper they 
found that only old girls were admitted. After a long 
wait they were compelled to lock-step into the hall where 
they were entertained by a kind of buffet supper. After 
supper came ceremonies too sacred to be mentioned in this 
book and read by other eyes than our own. Dancing 
followed until nine-thirty, when sleep and A. B. called us. 

Chequessett Log. 



258 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 



"CAL" 

Just when the second bugle toots, 
The dread of dripping bathing-suits 
Will bring reluctant girl recruits 
To cal. 

They struggle with dishevelled hair, 
And oh ! the kidding that they bear 
About peculiar clothes they wear 
For cal. 

It 's sprint as none has run before 
Or you may reach the Halle door 
Too late — the lines are on the floor 
In cal. 

Hips firm: head firm: fill up your space: 
Arms circling backwards till Her Grace, 
With mercy says "Class rest in place!" 
Phew, cal! 

Outside the frigid water gleams 
And as you hear the dippers' screams, 
You say, "It 's nicer than it seems — 
At cal!" 

Aloha Scamp Spirit. 



CAMP PERIODICALS 259 

REST HOUR 



"Now, girls," remarked the Councilor, 

"We '11 have a little rest; 
We '11 all lie upon our backs 
And dream of cheese and railroad tracks; 

I think that will be best." 

II 

"I doubt it," said the maidens three, 

Making a face or two, 
"After such dinners that would be 

A dismal thing to do. 
Our times to write our letters in 

Are far between and few. 

Ill 



"Besides, we want to knit a scarf 

And gobble up a book; 
We hate to rest, we want to talk" — 

Then courage them forsook. 
For the Councilor said nothing, but — 
She gave a frightful look. 



260 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

IV 

**My dear girls," said the Councilor, 

"The hour now is done; 
You may arise and talk and play" — 

But answer there came none, 
And this was scarcely odd, because 
They were sleeping, every one. 

I. 
Wyonegonic Loon. 

INSPECTION! 

WITH APOLOGIES TO KIPLING 

When the camp's last tent has been dusted. 

And the bathing suits wrung out and dried; 
When the walls have been cleared of all spiders. 

And the youngest mosquito has died : 
We can rest, and Faith, we shall need it; 

We '11 have peace for a moment or two, 
Till the bugle that 's blown by a camper 

Shall set us to work anew. 
A councilor comes to inspect us: 

She may praise, and yet she may blame. 
We ardently long for her praises; 

Her censure brings only red shame. 
It 's not for the fun of the cleaning 

That our tents are made orderly then: 
It 's because the inspector examines. 

And we hope she '11 mark down a ten. 

Pinewood (Michigan) Camp Log. 



CAMP PERIODICALS 261 

A DAY'S LOG FROM CAMP CHEQUESSETT 

Sunshine and breezes and Luke's morning sneezes 
Awoke Camp Chequessett, where each prospect pleases! 
We charged up the hill — with a last frantic snatch 
At neckties and shoe strings. With pep and dispatch 
We went through the stretching and balancing stunts 
A. B. 's been inflicting upon us for months. 
Then breakfast — My stars! How the food disappears 
'T would bring all our city relations to tears ! 

The brainy ones went to the old bungalow 
Prepared all their sea-faring knowledge to show. 
Cap'n Bill very sternly called out the sea terms, 
Each nautical lass chews her pencil and squirms. 
"What 's a jib and a boom and the top gallant mast? 
Heave Ho! and belay there — about and avast!" 
And then came the shell test. They say Cap'n Bill 
A victim of shell shock — is suffering — still! 

The rest of the campers were hunting up blacking, 
And parts of their costumes most woefully lacking; 
From the hall came a giggling and shuffling of feet 
That proved that the Minstrel Show 's almost complete ! 
Above all the uproar we heard Pat appealing 
For a little more ginger, expression and feeling. 
Dinner went in a manner exceedingly hasty, 
As usual 't was plenteous, toothsome and tasty. 



262 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

Now Scotti and Noelie go out on the bay, 
Their skill as true sailor-men for to display! 
Cap'n Bill and one passenger went as the crew, 
Mighty risky — say I — for a passenger too ! 
Noelie hit all the sticks Cap'n Bill pointed out — 
Sailed close to the wind — ^tacked, and brought her about. 
But whew! when our Scotti got hold of the tiller 
We clung to our seats — Sure we thought she would spill 
her! 
(The boat of course — pardon the interruption.) 
She let out the sail and we went around curves 
In a way most upsetting to stomachs and nerves ! 
Pshaw! that trig little ship lost all sense of propriety; 
Cap'n Bill ducked and dodged with a look of anxiety. 
Sometimes we were sailing due east by northwest. 
But we stuck to the craft — so are here like the rest. 

Three o'clock all the campers with clean shoes and faces 
Looked on while the tennis fans went through their paces 
At Baker's. You see the whole camp was invited — 
A real tennis party and were n't we delighted ! 
The punch was exquisite and all the camp rookies 
Ate more than enough of those awful good cookies! 

I 'm sorry to say that our precious A. B. 
Cheered the other side, purely politeness, you see! 
For supper the Lookouts and Angels departed 
For steak on the back shore — in elegance carted 
By a real Cape Cod horse and that 's about all 
That happened — took place, or to us did befall 



CAMP PERIODICALS 263 

Oh, no — ^there 's another thing I must confess 

J bestowed upon D her usual caress, 

Then all lights went out and high over the pines 
Like a big magic lantern the August moon shines! 

NATURE STUDY 

What bird is most common at Altamont? Ans. The 
Bacon Bat which could be classified in the bird book as 
follows : 

Habitat: A ravine not far from camp. Migrates to 
cities during winter. 

Song : All Altamont camp songs and yells. 

Food: Coffee, bacon, eggs, with a spider. 

Eggs: Always fried. 

Habits : Lives in tent colony. More or less quiet dur- 
ing the day, but starts activities about four-thirty P. M. 
each day, and continues very noisy for several hours until 
hunger is satisfied. 

Varieties: There are several varieties of thi£ bird, but 
they all belong to the Altamont family. 

Altamont Echo. . 

RECIPE FOR A GOOD CAMPER 

Select a good, healthy girl, remove city dress, silk 
stockings and high-heeled shoes, dress in a middy, bloom- 
ers and sneakers. 

Stir at six-thirty, blend in a little rowing, paddling, 
tennis, basketball and horseback riding. Dip in the lake, 
remove, and bake in the sun until a rich brown. Fill 



264 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

with three hearty meals a day, spread thickly with Cit- 
ronella, cover with a piece of clean netting, and store in a 
cool, dry tent in the midst of the pine woods at eight- 
thirty. 

Repeat daily for eight weeks; then pack and ship to 
waiting parents, who will hereafter always insist upon 
goods bearing the Wyonegonic trademark. 

Wyonegonic Loon. 

MILITARY DRILL 

"Do fall in," the order came and, "Dress your lines quite 
neatly; 

Pray do not say a single word, pray don't act indiscretely." 

And though a fifteen-minute drill impended, no one 
wilted. 

"Squads right!" A tender voice spoke up, "Pray sergeant 
pause a little. 

My squad 's not nearly yet completed, with none to act 
as pivot." 

At length the drill began with zeal, the lieutenant apolo- 
getic, 

Twixt pauses long and panting breath, gave forth com- 
mands so hectic — 

"Er — forward march — ^no — as you were . . . squads left 
— I 'm undecided — " 

Conclusions of a hasty sort she always had derided. 

"How many of the crowd," she asked, "would like a 
platoon motion?" 

"What only three? — well, let me see, I have another no- 
tion—" 



CAMP PERIODICALS 265 

This story could go on for good, but what 's the use of 

telling — 
How Sargent drills kept Sargent girls from every sort of 

ailing. 
The winter days with work — not ease — will find them 

each a "hummer," 
And you can bet, they '11 not forget a well-spent, glorious 

summer. 

Sargent Half Moon. 

THE CAMPY THING TO DO 

'*What is that bugle blowing for?" asked the little city 
maid. 

"That 's the campy way to welcome you," the veteran 
camper said. 

"And does the bugle often blow?" said the little city 
maid. 

"We hear it mom and noon and night," the veteran 
camper said; 

"For it calls us in the morning, when it 's time to rise 
and shine; 

It summons us to work, to play, to breakfast and to dine. 

Before the bugle's piercing note the old clock must re- 
sign; 

It 's the campy way of keeping time, you see." 

"What makes the girls all live in tents?" asked the little 

city maid. 
"It 's the only campy way to live," the veteran camper 

said. 



266 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

"And is there room for one to dwell?" said the little city 

maid. 
"There 's room for four and oft a dog," the veteran 

camper said. 
"But all your clothes you must hang up, and put each 

scrap in place. 
For four short cots and four large trunks must have their 

own floor space; 
And your tent flaps must be rolled up so the air can tan 

your face, 
For it 's the campy way to do, you see." 

"What are the girls all singing for?" asked the little city 
maid. 

"It 's the campy way to let off steam," the veteran camper 
said. 

"Is the table now the place to sing?" queried the wonder- 
ing maid. 

"Why, every place and every time we sing in camp," she 
said. 

"When we go off a-hiking there 's a song for every mile; 

When visitors arrive at camp, we sing to them awhile. 

When citizens would merely clap, speak a word or two or 
smile, 

The campy thing to do is sing a song." 

"And were you always wise as this?" asked the little city 

maid. 
"No, even I was once as you," the veteran camper said. 
"And do you think some day I '11 learn?" asked the little 

city maid. 



CAMP PERIODICALS 267 

"In time, my child, of course you will," the veteran 

camper said. 
"If you are quiet and subdued, and mind your councilors 

dear; 
Listen carefully to what you 're told, but believe not all 

you hear, 
And let the campy atmosphere soak in from year to year, 
You '11 be a veteran camper, too, some day. 

S err ana Year Book. 

WATER SPORTS 

"Bur-r-r, isn't it freezing? Imagine swimming to- 
day!" "I 'd rather die than go into that meet, wouldn't 
you?" 

These are the exclamations heard at the breakfast table 
while everyone clings madly to cups of hot chocolate. 

"Gee! I don't know what I '11 do, I 've signed up for 
relay, side stroke, and plunge for distance, and don't 
know a thing about what we 're to do" — "Oh, I 'm 
worse off than you. I 'm signed up for everything even 
the dash"— 

Out on the porch after breakfast 'mid cries of "Reds 
this way" and "Blacks over here," girls are rushing over 
to the board to sign up for rowing and paddling. 

"I just must qualify before the next canoe trip! — oh, 
they had such a marvelous time on the last one!" 

How can one blame them, for those who have been 
on canoe trips (cheese-dreams, did you say!) are the envy 
of the unfortunates who have missed such a glorious time. 

At ten o'clock from the bungalow porch comes the call 



268 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

— "All out for crew ! " and across the campus recruits rush 

lakeward for a half hour's practice to Miss M 's and 

Miss R 's cries of "Stroke — ^together — stroke." To 

one watching they seem to cover so much space in a few 
minutes that you wonder that "Fac" hasn't put a speed 
limit on crews. 

Ere this, the inevitable hour has rolled around and, 
Ding ! Dong ! goes the bell for swimming — yes, 't is time 
to don "Annettes" and await the call to rally to the color 
in a mad effort to make a few points. Down by the pier 
and float and along the ropes stretched from one to the 
other are canoes filled with eager "rooters" and boats bear- 
ing the honored judges. "Everybody on deck?" "On 
your mark," "Get set!" Bang!!! goes the pistol (if it 
works). 

Thus the first heat starts; then follows a series of ex- 
citing and peppery races of various kinds, while screams 
like "That's right. Max, keep it up!" "Go on Al- 
berta!" penetrate the air. 

But wait, the excitement isn't over yet, for there is a 
diving contest in the afternoon. This, not as exciting 
and noisy as the swimming meet, attracts much attention, 
and again a big crowd braves the windy shore and 
waves of Half-Moon to witness the wonderful skill ex- 
hibited in diving, with which Annette alone might com- 
pete. Every one stares awestruck as Izzie does a won- 
derful hand stand from the top of A float. Max, also, 
thrills the crowd with her beautiful dives in perfect form. 
Toward the end of supper excitement waxes keen, for 
then it is that the announcement of the points made by 



CAMP PERIODICALS 269 

each team and the winners of the individual contests is 
made. 

July Water Meet 
Won by Blacks. 

August Water Meet 
Won by Blacks. 

Sargent Half-Moon. 



FIELD DAY 

Field Day is a weekly event of great interest, for it is 
then that each girl shows her athletic abilities. How else 
would we know what dandy high-jumpers Marcella, Ellie 
and Blanche are, but for the Field Day events? 

There is the 50 yard dash. The girls go off in heats 
of four, and the winner of each heat is run off again. 
And each Field Day we hear the same yell: "Go it, 
Elsiel" "Beat her, Marce!" "Good, Olga!" 

There is the shot-put. Cheers go up as Olga puts 
the 8-pound shot 21 feet. Ruth Brindze is always a 
close second. 

At last we come to the obstacle race. Almost every girl 
signs up for this. Miss Rothberg fixes up some easy- 
looking, but tricky device to have us rush over or through, 
while the spectators laugh at us. Don't they, Frankie ? 

Last week for the first time the standing broad jump 
was introduced. Many of the girls are just great at this. 
Elsie beat Olga by one-fourth of an inch. Olga jumped 
6 ft. 2^ inches. Question: What was the first-place? 



270 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

And then, to top off all this excitement on the field, the 
points that each team has made, and then the total, are 
announced at dinner. 

The teams have made a good showing this year. The 
competition was close, with a final score of: Green — 
147. White— 112. 

Highland Nature Campfire. 



SWIMMING 

TOAST TO THE SWIMMING MASTER 

July the first and all Tahoma races madly to the lake. 
In they jump, with shouts and laughter. You can see the 
springboard shake. 

And always at the hour set, these we find their occupa- 
tions — 

Breast stroke, side stroke, back stroke, crawl and fancy 
dives with salutations. 

Single and double over-arm, with proper ex- and in-spira- 

tions. 
Screams and yelps, then down the chute with necessary 

exclamations. 

Nor has enthusiasm waned, or interest diminished. 
Since the day that George announced "Well, now, the 
chute is finished!" 



CAMP PERIODICALS 271 

But someone 's standing on the dock who waves his arms 
in demonstration, 

He wears a very earnest look as he makes each explana- 
tion; 

"Easy now, don't hurry, coast — don't forget that, Helen 

Tower, 
Bend the elbow, Mary Bell. You 're doing finely, Marion 

Brower!" 

"Big scissors, kick now — ^that 's the way — left arm 

straight, and stretch it. No, 
That isn't right. Now try again and close the fingers. 

That way— So!" 

All summer long Tahoma practised while he taught with 

great success. 
If any one should doubt, there 's much to say about our 

progress. 

Before July came to an end so many girls had passed the 

test. 
And during August many names were added — ^nearly all 

the rest. 

He taught us how to hold the neck and pull the victim out 

alive. 
You see, it was our natural bent to strangle first and then 

revive. 



272 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 

We learned to breathe the proper way — out when in and 

in when out. 
And this one wish is in the heart of every girl without 

a doubt — 



That he may know our gratitude and deep appreciation. 

So — here 's to Mr. L our greatest inspiration. 

Tahoma Spark. 



IODINE 

If perchance you should be sniffling, 

After walking in the rain, 
If you step upon a splinter. 
Or your wrist or ankle sprain. 

This certain cure the nurses bring, 
We know you '11 find the very thing 
Is I-o-dine. 

If your hands are full of blisters, 

Or, alas, you eat too much, 
If you stump your toe so sadly 

That you know you '11 need a crutch; 
Just seek out the nurse and then 
They '11 surely make you well again 
With I-o-dine. 

If you have a little grouch on 
And are feeling rather blue, 



CAMP PERIODICALS 273 

If the people all seem crabbed 
(When the trouble is with you) 
Take just a little, not too much, 
But give yourself a little touch 
Of I-o-dine. 

Quinnibeck Log. 



THE THOUGHTS OF A WALDENER 
SLEEPING OUT 

First Spirit — "I am the embodiment of the thoughts that 

a Walden camper sleeping out should have." 
Second Spirit — "And / am the embodiment of the thoughts 

that a Walden camper sleeping out does have." 
First Spirit — "Oh, Mother Earth makes a wonderful bed." 
Second Spirit — "Gee! there's a rock right under my 

head." 
First Spirit — "How gently the summer breeze over me 

blows." 
Second Spirit — "Ding bust that mosquito, nibbling my 

nose." 
First Spnrit — "Hark to the sound of the rippling lake." 
Second Spirit — "My limbs are asleep but / 'm still 

awake." 
First Spirit — "To watch the starlets I simply adore." 
Second Spirit — "Gee! but that councilor sure can snore." 
First Spirit — "How high and bright the watch-fires 

leap!" 
Second Spirit — "I wonder if the * stay-at-homes* are al- 
ready asleep!" 



274 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 

First Spirit — "The pine trees are whispering soft and 
low." 

Second Spirit — "My blanket has slipped and I 'm freezing 
my toe." 

First Spirit — "Mom's rosy glow soon must appear." 

Second Spirit — "Beans! there's that bug again tickling 
my ear." 

First Spirit — "A glorious sunrise there '11 be, without 
doubt." 

Second Spirit — "You fib, it 's the flap- jacks you 're think- 
ing about." 

First Spirit — "I could n't get hungry with what 's in my 
tummy." 

Second Spirit — "Watermelon and flap- jacks sure are get- 
ting chummy." 

First Spirit — "My, but our voices are getting weak." 

Second Spirit — "It 's time now to die for our charge is 
asleep." 

W olden Splash. 

AS SLEEPING OUT FEELS 

Your friend has all the covers: 

You wakened with the cocks: 
Your brain is full of cobwebs, 

The ground is full of rocks! 

AS SLEEPING OUT IS 

Wrapped up in all the blankets, 

You 've snored the whole night through : 



CAMP PERIODICALS 275 

Your friend has almost frozen — 
What COULD the woman do? 

Aloha Scamp Spirit. 



AN ODE TO MY KNAPSACK 

I have a little knapsack 

That goes in and out with me 

On all my trips and hikes it is 
As faithful as can be. 

All day upon my back it rests, 

At night it 's by my bed ; 
And if the pillow 's lacking, 

Why, it goes beneath my head. 

I pack it very carefully. 

So many things it holds, 
And spectators gasp with wonder 

When its contents it unfolds. 

There 's a little jar of bacon, 

By a little cake of soap, 
My toothbrush and some ginger cake, 

They have not mixed, I hope. 

Behold my comb and washcloth 
With some chocolate in my shoe. 

And there 's my extra middie blouse 
With butter oozing through. 



276 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

That 's where I spilled the pickle juice — 

Those fuimy little spots; 
And mercy me ! my sneaker strings 

Are in a thousand knots. 

But what 's this goo-y looking thing ? 

All smeared with bacon, too! 
O, no! here! don't throw that away, 

That 's a souvenir for you. 

Quinnibeck Log. 



PADDLING 
A Song from Winnetaska 

When first I saw Winnetaska, 't was on a rainy day; 

The rain came down in torrents there, it washed me most 
away; 

I saw a little gray canoe, a paddle strong and light, 

I tried to paddle up the hill, for the craft looked water- 
tight! 

Next morning we went swimming, I thought I 'd take a 

ride; 
The gray canoe, it wiggled so, I could not stay inside; 
Then Miss Van N said do this, and Doctor said do 

that,— 
I thought the safest thing to do, would be to lie down flat ! 

They told me kneel I surely must, and keep stroke with 
the crew, 



CAMP PERIODICALS 277 

Must never stop and look around, 't was not the thing to 

do; 
And if I held my paddle so, and kept my head up straight, 
I 'd find that I could steer my craft with any kind of 

freight. 

But when a month was over, I 'd learned a thing or two; 
I 'd learned to dip my paddle right, and to steer that gray 

canoe; 
I 'm not afraid of motor boats, or waves that splash and 

curl, 
I Ve won my Class A Honors now, I 'm a Winnetaska 

Girl! 

HONOR GIRLS 

Our Honor Girls, we homage pay 

To you from every heart; 
We reverence the leadership 

In which you play a part. 

With you you hear your symbol, 

Your magic letter Q, 
That you have honored Quinnibeck 

And she has honored you. 

And all the best that 's in us. 

Knows just what the service meant; 

We salute you and pay tribute 
To the things you represent. 

Quinnibeck Log, 



278 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 



A CANOE TRIP 

'T was such a glorious morning we set out on our trip, 
Then followed our canoe drill and the signal, "nine-ten- 
dip" 
We sang and paddled gaily till at last there came in 

sight, 
A little group of houses and we cheered with all our 

might; 
A great big white lake steamer made the rippling waves 

roll high, 
And we rocked as if in cradles till the boat had passed 

us by. 
Ere long we saw White Mountain with its tiny huts of 

wood; 
One thing we 'd like to tell you : the sight of men looked 

good: 
And then around the comer Wohelo hove in sight, 
Cordially did they welcome us, our colors, green and 

white. 
Our friends, the shipwrecked sailors, were glad to see 

us, too. 
And came right out in boats with a friendly, "How 

dy-do" 
Wohelo's fame for diving, made us glad the hour was 

near 
For us to see their daring stunts and sing to them and 

cheer. 
They did full credit to their name and when we went 

away 



CAMP PERIODICALS 279 

We sang a "thank you" song to them; we 'd had a lovely 
day. 

A dandy beach we found at length, so that is where we 
landed, 

Our nice cool dip refreshing us; in little groups we 
banded — 

A yum-yum lunch was relished, of Ziegenbacher's fame 

But soon some paddlers realized their sunburn made them 
lame. 

The waves were high when next we launched 

A staunch and goodly crew and paddled through the roll- 
ing waves 

While winds our frail crafts blew. 

At last we saw our island and we knew that we were 
home. 

And camp looked good, I tell you, tho' we always love to 
roam. 

We were as happy as could be, and after we had landed 

We gave a cheer and sang a song — then merrily dis- 
banded. 

Highland Nature Campfire. 

THE BANQUET 

We all dreamed a lot the night before. Before what, 
you ask? Why the banquet, of course. Two hours to 
eat and all the food we wanted. Turkey and ice cream 
was our first dream. And after that the whole night was 
one dream of the cup. That was the night before and the 
Banquet next day was no less wonderful than our dreams. 
Of course, we had to have a peek at what was going on 



280 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

before dinner started. So after swimming we all looked 
in the dining-room. I got the best window and I saw 
a wonderful hollow square of tables. Each one had cups 
full of flowers and greens on it and all the odd corners of 
the room were bright yellow with golden glow. Only 
some decorations were ready then and our hearts filled 
with joy of them. But later when we were all seated 
around the tables the food brought even more delight. 
Before we could begin to eat a queer man in black cap 
and gown strutted across to his seat opposite Dr. Sargent. 
His cape was covered with funny tags, "Green Apple 
Dreams" and "Tennis Thoughts." We all kept quiet 
when he began to talk: "Listen, my children, and you 
shall hear, who I am that looks so queer." He then said 
he was the mystery man but we all knew that it was 

Amy E , the toast-mistress. After she had carefully 

adjusted her glasses she introduced all the Directors. 
Each one spoke to us and we enjoyed hearing them. 
When we had eaten all the ice cream we could Dr. Sar- 
gent talked to us and announced that the Reds had won 
the cup, which was the climax of the whole dinner. As 
a closing, we sang "Up in the Hills of Old New Hamp- 
shire." 

Sargent Half-Moon. 

GOING HOME 

My skirt is full of wrinkles and a sight. 

Some chipmunks ate the trimming off my hat, 

My shirtwaist caught upon its hook and tore, 
But, oh, if only I were not so fat! 






CAMP PERIODICALS 281 

My sole is flapping wildly from my shoe, — 
I do not mind a little thing like that, 

Or having rims by dozens in my hose — 
But, oh, if only I were not so fat! 

My arms are freckled beyond all repair, 

Alas, one glove was eaten by a rat. 
My nose is blazing like a shining light. 

But, oh, if only I were not so fat ! 

Quinnibeck Log. 



JESTS 



ADVICE TO THE FORLORN 

BY KATHERINE CAMPER 

Dear Neatness — I should suggest your writing poems 
to the tent inspector to get an A. This has been suc- 
cessfully tried in one tent. 

Perplexed — Certainly one should not play tennis in 
just a bathing suit. Modesty is woman's crowning glory, 
without it she becomes merely — a camper. 

Etiquette — It is not considered proper to answer a 
young man's letters the day you receive them. At Camp 
however, it is a sure way of having your mail box full. 

ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN 

BY EXCUSE MY IMPERTINENCE 

Dear Miss Impertinence: We are all crazy about 
the handsome, golden-haired athletic councilor. But it 
is very discouraging; she shows no one any particular 
favor, though she is always sweet to all of us. Tell us, is 
there any way of telling which one she likes the best? — 
I. C, E. C, L. G., etc. 

Dear I. C, E. C, L. G., etc. — Now, my children, it is a 
very delicate question which you ask me, and I should 
advise you to go slow on the matter. Probably the golden- 
haired Venus in question really likes you all in the same 

285 



286 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

degree. If this is so, don't risk forfeiting her good opin- 
ion by trying to make her like any one of you the best. 

Dear Miss Impertinence: "I live on Hillside, but on 
Lakeside dwells a person I adore. I spend most of my 
days in the tent next to hers, or visiting her own tent- 
mates, but still she seems to go on "playing around" with 
several girls of whom I am dreadfully jealous. Why 
can't I make her like me better? Give your sage advice 
to lovelorn. — Alice F. 

Dear Alice : It is quite possible that your goddess does 
like you immensely. Goddesses don't usually stoop to tell 
their worshippers of their likes and dislikes. It seems 
to me that you will just have to go on being satisfied by 
being near her. If you truly love her, this should be 
enough. 

Aloha Scamp Spirit. 

ADVICE TO THE NEW GIRL 

When you 're fast asleep in bed 

And you don't feel much like waking, 

Don't get scared if you hear a noise. 
For it 's just the day that 's breaking. 

When you wake up in the morning 

And you hear the bugle ring, 
Just catch the little tune it plays 

And tie it with a string. 



When you go in for your breakfast 
Eat all that you are able, 



JESTS 287 

For it 's our patriotic duty 
To clean up every table. 

Take hold of the hand of the law, 
But don't step on the foot of the hill, 

If you should bump into the head of the class 
Just do it a la Jack and Jill. 

Tahoma Spark. 

HEARD AROUND CAMP 

An inkling is a little ink. 

The bear came out to get her bearings. 

The flatter the plate, the few the soup. 

She cut herself when she tried to write on the spur of the 

moment. 
''Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we di"-et. 
"Everybody in the second row in back of everyone in the 

front row." 
"Squads left and forward — right through the post." 

Sargent Half-Moon. 

THINGS NEW GIRLS ASK 

How long is quiet hour? 
Why do they call them sinkers? 
Child — Mother, I hate camp, may I come home? 
Fond Parent — ^Try it for two weeks, dear, and then 
you may come. 

Child — But mother, I 'd love it if I stayed that long. 
Jerry, at the auction, tries to sell a "bathing suit to 



288 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

take your last swim in" — that 's all very well from a Life 
Saver, but who 's going to bid $1.75 for a watery grave? 

Aloha Scamp Spirit. 

WHAT SHE TAKES ON HER FIRST TRIP 

Blankets (four pair), poncho, rubber blanket, pillow, 
mirror, towel, tooth brush, hair brush, cold cream, tooth 
paste, soap, drinking cup, fountain pen, field glasses, 
kodak, clean middy, sweater, night gown, other shoes, 
trunk key, money, chocolate, talcum powder, raincoat, hat, 
and dogged determination. 

WHAT SHE TAKES ON HER TRIPS 
AFTER THAT 

Blankets, friends, and a smile. 

Aloha Scamp Spirit. 

CAMP LIFE, OR LIFE IN A SUITCASE 

She opened the valise, took out the soap, shut the valise, 
sat down, opened the valise, took out her purse, shut the 
valise, opened the purse, took out a stamp. Shut the 
purse, opened the valise, put in the purse, then wrote the 
following : 

Oh, the camp life, the tramp life 
No fancy ribbons or laces. 
But many sunburned faces. . . . 
Altamont {Short Vacation Camp) Echo. 



JESTS 289 

An artillery charge is upon me, 

The shrapnel bursts all round about, 

A bomb is now landing behind me. 

There 's another, good gracious, watch out ! 

No! truly I am not demented, 

I 'm really as sane as can be. 
But this is the general impression 

If you sleep *neath the old apple tree. 

Quinnibeck Log. 

OVERHEARD BY A CAMP DIRECTOR 

First Maine Native: — "If you had such a bunch to 
take care of, would you rather have girls or boys?" 

Second Maine Native: — "Boys, every time, for me. 

Third Voice: — "Waal, I do 'no. As if you 'd ask me 
whether I would ruther take a sound licken or have 
charge of those gurls, I would take the sound licken every 
time." 

Highland Nature Camp Fire. 

THE ARMY AT ALOHA 

General-in-Chief — General Confusion 

General Nuisance 

Colonel Nut 

Major Bed Major Look 

Sergeant Camp Sergeant School 

Corporal Punishment 

Private Opinion Private Affairs 

Private Way Private Property 



290 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 
SUDS FROM THE ALOHA CLUB WASH 

AN ANNOUNCEMENT AFTER PRAYERS 

Perkie (rising and energetically pulling down her 
middy) : — "The minister over at Bradford wants some of 
us to come over and entertain his congregation — sacred 
music or selections with a moral. Four girls went over 
last year and gave a duet." (Luther facetiously suggests 
"trio.") 

LIGHT JOKES IN TENT 15 

Frank (discovering that putting out the lantern had 

fallen to her lot that night) : — "Give me the lantern. I '11 

take all the light jobs." 

Nancy: — "I learned all my part in the middle of the 

night." 

Frank: — "Did you turn on your bug light?" 
Helene: — "Oh, no. she just turned her brain on." 
Nancy (brightening) : — "Yes, I really did." 
Frank: — "I always knew your brain was light." 
Helene (after a tongue twisting remark) : — "I declare I 

just can't talk any more." 

Ned :— "Hurrah ! ! Is n't that fine." 

The Club seems divided into two parties — those that are 

dieting, and those whom we fear will die eating. 

Aloha Slang. 



JESTS 291 

FASHIONS 

From Altamont: — Skirts are worn short — very short and 
caught in at the knee. Blouses are worn long — very long, 
and cover the knee. 

From Tent 8: — For morning wear, Smocks and 
bloomers. 

For the afternoon: — Smocks and bloomers. 

For the evening: — Smocks and bloomers. 

The above costume might be varied by wearing bloomers 
with a smock. 

From Paris: — Veils will be worn this fall. There will 
be face-veils, bridal veils and veils of tears. The season 
for the latter opens Saturday, August 26. 

Altamont Echo. 



SMILES 
(From Tahoma Spark) 

Miss C, basketball in hand: — "Come on, let's go up 
to the field and make some baskets." 

New girl, running along behind: — "But what are we 
going to make the baskets out of. Miss C. ?" 

F. is a devoted friend. She said the other day: — "I 've 
GOT to go home. I can't leave my teeth so long." 

M. : — "Dot sure is a strong girl. I saw her tearing up 
the stairs the other day." 



292 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

B. : — "Oh, that 's nothing. You should have seen 
Betty pulling up Mount Washington." 

Tent Six, going to bed without a light. Eleanor to 
Bob: — "Say, let's make Miss D.'s bed up pie!" 

Miss D., from her bed in the comer: — "Do by all 
means, girls. Shall I get up while you do it?" 

There is a young lady named Jean 

Who tries very hard to be lean, 

It 's her duty, she feels 

To diet at meals, 

But Gosh, what she eats in between! 

Now Tommie is a maiden quite lean, 

Who desires to be more like Jean. 

At table, 't is swore. 

Her helpings are four 

But the fat, well that 's yet to be seen. 



KATHERINE KAMPER'S KOLUMN 

Stylish: Yes, colored hair bands are very stylish. 
Lavendar and cerise, scarlet and magenta, or- 
ange and pink are some of the newest com- 
binations — particularly affected by the Cub- 
ists. 

Bitter: Revenge is sweet. Yes, cold water is just as 
effective as a dagger in the back. 

Sally: I fear you have a temper to overcome. No, I 



JESTS 293 

do not think it wise to ever get mad! Culti- 
vate a sweet and forbearing disposition. 
"Seconds" are always in style. Even a third 
and fourth helping is advised by some of the 
best counsels in the country. A healthy appe- 
tite is an excellent thing. 

Anxious: No, "Lizzie" is no longer a stylish name. I 
would advise you to change it, certainly. It 
may be hard at first to accustom others to 
your new title, but I am sure if you explain it 
to them carefully and kindly, they will be 
only too glad to do as you want them to do. 

Dyspeptic: Yes — ^too much pie — especially just at bed- 
time is bad for the digestion. It encourages 
insomnia. 

Vain: Curly locks certainly are becoming to your style 
of beauty. If you do not like to fix your hair 
before breakfast, why not wear a dainty cap? 
There are some lovely ones of white duck on 
display in our leading store. I have seen 
them fetchingly decorated with ink sketches. 
Aloha Scamp Spirit. 
"Do you know, Miss C, you have a fortune in your 

voice?" 

"How do you mean — Grand Opera singing?" 
"Oh my, no, peddling fish." 

C. was watching her first baseball game. 
Miss H.: — "Do you understand it all?" 

C. — "Oh yes, perfectly, but why does B run so hard 

when no one is after her?" Cowassett Netha. 



294 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 



FLAPPERS FLAPPING FLAP-JACKS 

Sing a song of flap- jacks, 

Flapped judiciously, 
Swimming in molasses, 

Awaiting you and me. 

Sing a song of Walden girls, 
Who like to lend a hand; 
Their flap-jacks would be very good, 
If it was n't for the sand. 

Rose H. Schwarz. 

Walden Splash. 

THE OPTIMIST AND THE MOSQUITO 

The unexpected calls to me 

And swarms about my head; 
Why should I swat the fly that flees, 

Or strike a skeeter dead? 

His little legs are frail and thin — 

Emaciated skeeter — 
And "Hodgy" is a robust girl; 

What matter if he eat her? 

Wyonegonic Loon. 

OUR NEWSTAND 

Harpers Bazaar The store 

Cosmopolitan The campers 



JESTS 295 

Physical Culture Morning Exercise 

Life At the H. N. C. 

Every Week Sunday Morning talks 

Vogue Beaded Headbands 

Youth's Companion Jr. Counselors 

Literary Digest Campfire 

Review of Reviews Log 

Independent . Mrs. Z 

Current Opinion Dining-room 

Variety Meals of the H. N. C. 

Vanity Fair Canoe Bracelets 

Saturday Evening Post News Report 

Country Gentleman Grandpa M 

Town and Country Naples and North Sebago 

Outlook Disinfected Mail 

Little Folks Juniors 

Smart Set Editorial Staff 

Highland Nature Campfire. 

Who was it broke three buglights and almost ruined a 

lamp? 
Who was it wore her "T" shirt on the hottest day in camp? 
Who is it blows the bugle, when e'er she gets a chance ? 
Who has to say, "Yes, you can have the fifty-second 

dance?" 
Who is the Queen of Sheba, and of Heba who 's the king ? 
Who bows so very sweetly when she thinks her name we 

sing? 

These are all different people. Each sentence is a clue, 
Tell me, pretty camper, which one of them is you? 

Quinnibeck Log. 



296 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 



PUZZLE 

If three men from the club, three from camp, together 
with four campers for assistants, drag the float 500 yards, 
breaking an oar, and anchor it fifty feet out from the 
dock, how long will it stay put if a wind rises during the 
night and blows eighty miles an hour ? 

Send all answers to Magazine Editor before Wednesday. 

JUICY BITS 

A cruel-hearted camper 
Pursued a green worm fine; 
It crawled inside a clock to hide, 
And cried, "I 'm just in time!" 

And then she chased a spider 
All on a summer's day; 
It rushed upon the scales and cried, 
"I 'm glad I got a weigh!" 

CONTENTMENT 

If you are intent 
Upon the content 
Because of the extent 
Of your own tent. 
Could you be content 
When not in tent — 
And to what extent? 

Serrana Year Book. 



JESTS 297 



TO A MOSQUITO 

O gentle little creature of the air, 

What can I say in praise of your small self? 

Could I do justice to a sprite so fair, 

To such a dainty, airy little elf? 

Did dancer ever trip with finer grace 

Than that with which you lightly, gently sway? 

Did lover e'er imprint upon her face 

A kiss that can be felt for many a day? 

When in my bed at sleeping time I lie, 
You come to me and sing with voice so sweet, 
That through the night I dare not shut an eye 
For fear that I may miss so rare a treat. 

For then I heard music (a beautiful strain) 
"You 're at peace with the world" was the soft refrain. 

Walden Splash. 



CHAPTER XVII 

EDUCATIONAL VALUES AND THE SUMMER CAMP 

THE whole idea of the organized summer 
camp has taken on a new significance in 
our American life since the boys have 
been coming home from the army camps, bring- 
ing new gains in health and efficiency. Besides 
this, there is another reason. Before the war we 
were living under an awful delusion. We 
thought we were a healthy nation. And so it 
was that the revelations of the selective draft woke 
us up with a start, when we found that one out 
of every three of our young men was unfit to 
bear arms because of physical defects. 

Camps for girls were never more popular than 
today. The camp idea has grown into a great 
movement that has lately gained a new impetus 
by the cooperation of the leaders of the private 
camps, the Girl Scouts, the Campfire Girls and 
the Woodcraft League, and is making great 
strides toward definite standards and greater 

298 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 299 

efficiency. Recognizing its educational value, 
Teachers College, Columbia University, joining 
forces with these organizations, recently offered 
a course of lectures on Camping for Girls, with 
the expressed purpose of training leaders for the 
new educational work. 

One of the chief reasons for the increasing 
popularity of the summer camp is its program of 
physical training. It seems remarkable that this 
phase of educational work should be ignored by 
the schools when fifty per cent of the children of 
school age in America, according to a recent study 
made by the Public Health Association, are 
found to have physical defects that impede their 
normal progress. "The pity of it!" said a 
prominent educator not long ago, in addressing a 
meeting of camp directors. And he went on to 
say that a child could go all the way through the 
school system without raising his hands above 
his head except to thumb a piece of chalk. The 
force of all this is not lost on the camp leaders, 
whose physical examinations, made in the camps 
of the best type, show so many cases of bad 
posture, narrow chests and other physical defects 
that have to be assigned to special classes in cor- 
rective exercises — exercises that need never have 



300 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS^ CAMP 

hampered the freedom of the camper^s summer, 
had the schools been equally concerned. 

The girls' camp goes further than physical 
training. It is helping to solve a difficult prob- 
lem in the social life of the school girl. For the 
average high school girl is greatly hampered by 
her environment. With her round of teas, 
dances, lunches, movies and motor trips, she often 
has as many engagements as her mother. Her 
only sport is driving a car. Life for her is so 
complex — no matter how much she may wish it 
otherwise — that she actually has difficulty in 
keeping up her work at school. We hear a great 
deal about the problem of simplifying the social 
life of the school girl, and the summer camp 
seems to be the most welcome solution because it 
offers not only a good time but a system of train- 
ing as well. 

This training is away from the academic or 
formal instruction of school. A camp girl is not 
taught theories, but how to do things. At camp 
she is taught to meet the real issues of life. An 
example of this came to the notice of a woman 
touring in the White Mountains last summer. 
Near the entrance to the Flume she came upon a 
party of camp girls in the usual middle and 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 301 

bloomer costume, having a glorious time sliding 
down over some slippery rocks beside a gushing 
stream that comes down from the canyon above. 
It was an attractive picture, and she stopped a 
moment to watch the sport, when all at once some- 
thing happened. One of the girls, coming down 
swiftly over a flat boulder, struck a sharp piece 
of stone below and cut her foot. The fun 
stopped at once and all the girls came running to 
the spot to offer their help. There was no 
thought of running for a doctor, but in an in- 
stant a First Aid Kit was produced and without 
any ado, or even suggestion from the councilor, 
these girls, a moment ago all fun and frolic, pro- 
ceeded to take care of the injured foot themselves. 
They cleansed the cut with the cool water; ap- 
plied iodine and put on bandages, as though it 
were an every day experience. Then they re- 
moved their patient to a shady spot and made 
her comfortable with pillows made from their 
own sweaters while the councilor went off to make 
arrangements for taking her home. All this was 
a revelation to the visitor, herself the mother of a 
fifteen-year-old daughter and she was completely 
won over to the girls' camp. 

The following year this lady sent her own 



302 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

daughter to a camp, hoping for great results, but 
to her great disappointment she found at the end 
of the summer that Dorothy had gained nothing 
but a good time. For there are camps and 
camps, and this one happened to be of the type 
that had not advanced beyond the idea of recrea- 
tion — their aim was merely to give the girls a 
summer of outdoor play, without any more seri- 
ous purpose with regard to training. 

But there is another type of camp, one that is 
committed to a system of sound training based on 
a program of camp activities that has been de- 
veloped by educators through more than fifteen 
years' experience. The camp activities consist 
of outdoor sports under trained leadership and 
carefully directed occupations. Although the 
occupations are a part of the daily routine, there 
is enough variety to give each girl the freedom 
of choice, so that everyone can find something 
suited to her taste. 

In the best type of camp as we have said before, 
a record is kept of each girl's accomplishments 
throughout the summer. In a typical camp of 
this kind there hangs just inside the door of the 
rustic bungalow or recreation hall, a chart of the 
camp's activities with the record of each girl's 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 303 

achievements, indicated by crosses, or points op- 
posite her name. For each unit of work accom- 
plished, whether it be in swimming, land sports, 
hand crafts, nature work, camp craft, Red Cross 
work or war gardening, dancing, dramatics, neat- 
ness of tent or any other phase of camp life, a 
point is added to the record on the chart. This 
form of recognition of achievement is a great suc- 
cess, for with camp girls achievement counts for 
much. It is not what you have, nor what you 
have done, nor who you are at home that counts, 
but what you can do at camp. So having elected 
from the chart the occupations in which she wants 
to engage, the average camp girl is greatly inter- 
ested in watching her record grow. 

Outdoor sports naturally have the first place 
on the camp program, .and the most popular of 
all is swimming which has been described else- 
where. The camp girl is not content with merely 
going in for a swim. All through the swimming 
hour she is striving with all her might to master 
one more stroke or dive that will add another 
point to her record on the chart, and she even 
works at it in the morning dip. What she is 
striving for, it should be known, is no small am- 
bition. For the swimming requirements in a 



304 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

camp of this type are being place^ oxl a par with 
the men's colleges. Each swimmer, after master- 
ing the fundamental strokes in good form is re- 
quired to pass the canoe test, which involves 
keeping up in deep water, swimming or floating, 
for twenty minutes. After this, the camp girl 
goes on to work on the more difficult strokes with 
emphasis on correct breathing and relaxed mus- 
cles, and after passing further tests she is trained 
in methods of life saving, with tests that are more 
and more difficult and that develop a feeling of 
at-home-ness in the water and self-confidence in 
an emergency that a grown-up might well envy. 
Yes, and even her college brother. For what 
member of the college swimming team could have 
done more in the way of keeping his head and 
meeting an emergency than did the seventeen- 
year-old camp girl who swam out to the rescue 
of an exhausted swimmer on the Maine coast and 
towed her unconscious subject — a man of heavy 
build — with easy strokes back to safety? More 
than one college boy has had quite a surprise to 
find that his small sister at camp could outdo 
him in form swimming. 

As in her sports, so it is in the whole program 
of camp activities, the camp girl works with all 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 305 

her might and main, and in the end she has some- 
thing to show for her summer, whether it be a 
loving cup, a medal, or the camp letter to wear 
on her sweater, or merely a satisfactory record 
on the camp chart. And while each of these 
occupations has value in itself, they are all the 
while helping to develop essential qualities of 
mind and spirit that are perhaps after all the 
greater assets. Through her sports she gains 
firmer muscles, the capacity to breathe deeper, 
to stand straighter. But she also learns to obey 
orders, to act instantaneously, to respect an op- 
ponent and to work with and for others. And 
it is this that adds to the value of all the occupa- 
tions. As one camp girl said, she never learned 
so much in all her life and had such a good time 
doing it, as in her summer at camp. 

But perhaps the greatest of all values comes 
through the experience of community living. 
The girl in college looks back and sees how her 
early experience in camp, of rubbing elbows with 
other people taught her how to understand peo- 
ple. It taught her right values — what things to 
care about and what were unimportant; how to 
look beyond the externals to what was in the 
girl herself. By sharing a tent with three others 



306 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

she could not fail to learn something of toleration 
and consideration for others. And all the while 
she was forming the habit of making light of 
difficulties and seeing the humor in any kind of 
situation. For this spirit always prevails in the 
girls' camp, no matter what the difficulties — of 
rain; or mud; or mosquitoes; or heat; or dust; 
or a steep trail. For example, one party coming 
in from a long hike developed blisters, and as 
they neared camp every step became painful. 
But it is the tradition of camp that every party 
must "finish in style," so they formed a line and 
made their entrance into camp marching in step 
to "Bliss! Bliss!! Blister!!!" 

The gains from community living are respon- 
sible for more than most people imagine. The 
mother of a fourteen-year-old daughter who was 
somewhat of a problem at home, greatly puzzled, 
wrote back her thanks to the camp for sending 
home "such a lovable child," and declaring that 
Janet's disposition "had been completely trans- 
formed. Said another mother, whose daughter 
had taken honors at camp for all-round improve- 
ment, "What I can't understand is, why they are 
so trying at home and such little angels at camp." 
Neither of these mothers realized that what was 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 307 

really responsible for the change was the ex- 
perience of living in a community made up of 
girls of the same age. For the camp is a sort 
of Junior Republic. When a girl comes to camp 
she finds herself an important part of the com- 
munity. The government comes from herself, 
not from outside. For example, she goes to bed 
at nine o'clock, not because she is told to, but 
because she wants to be a good camper. And 
the reason she wants to be a good camper is 
largely because of Mrs. Grundy, who in this en- 
vironment is a group of girls of her own age, in 
place of a set of tiresome older people, and she 
cares a great deal what they think of her. She 
also wants to be like other girls. As a fifteen- 
year-old girl, who was broken-hearted at being 
refused a party on a school night, said to her 
mother, "Oh, dear! I have to be queer among 
all the other girls, just because you won't let me 
go to the party!" So, because these things be- 
long to the traditions of the camp made by the 
girls themselves, she works to uphold the disci- 
pline by being prompt at all her appointments, 
keeping her tent neat and taking good care of 
her belongings and trying to be a valuable mem- 
ber of the camp. Then, too, it is easier to make 



308 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

good in this free joyous community, where cheer- 
fulness and humor and singing are the very 
breath of life, than in an atmosphere of grown-up 
seriousness, perhaps repression and underlying 
fear. And after" nine weeks of this life it is no 
wonder that a camp girl is a good person to live 
with. 

Now since the experience of the summer camp 
has come to be a real part of a girl's education, 
the wise parent will exercise great care in the 
choice of a camp. In these days when the ad- 
vertising pages of the magazines are filled with 
enticing pictures and announcements, showing 
lovely mountain views, fine buildings, piers, 
chutes, war canoes and other attractions, this is 
becoming increasingly difficult. One woman 
who chose a camp for her daughter on the basis 
of equipment — because she preferred shacks or 
little bungalows to tents — found that she had 
made a mistake. She had neglected to look 
further into the question of ideals and leadership, 
which she found before the summer was over is 
the first consideration. 

^'Oh, but the camps are all alike," said an- 
other woman, ^^as I can see by the catalogs. It 
is simply a question of whether you know some- 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 309 

one going to this one or that one." The answer 
is, "Yes, camps are all alike and so are people. 
All persons go to bed at night, eat three times a 
day, wear the same clothes; hence it really 
does n't matter which person you choose for a 
friend.'' The fact is, camps have even more in- 
dividuality than persons. A camp reflects the 
personality of its leader. Now some persons 
have a pleasing personality; others are forceful 
but unpleasing; still others are insipid or color- 
less. And these things influence us in selecting 
our friends. Why not even more in selecting a 
camp? 

**How did you decide," I asked the mother of a 
camp girl, "where to send Grace to camp?" 
"Why," she said, "I sent for a number of cata- 
logs and lined them up before me and looked at 
the faces and chose the one I liked best." 

There are several considerations in choosing a 
camp, but none more important than leadership. 
Since every camp reflects the personality of its 
leader, the first question is, whose personality, 
and what are the ideals that are expressed in the 
camp? Is the aim to develop the girl or to give 
her a good time ? Are things made easy or is she 
encouraged, like the girl scout, to overcome ob- 



310 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

stacks? What is the spirit of the camp as re- 
flected by the girls and councilors? Its attitude 
toward service and the thought of others? Does 
it stand for the principle, made popular by the 
Camp Fire Girls, of glorifying work? In some 
camps a certain proportion of the members earn 
a part of the tuition by helping with the domestic 
work, after the example of women's colleges, and 
these are usually the most popular girls in camp. 
What are the camp's standards of values as ex- 
pressed in the honors or recognition of achieve- 
ment? In the best camps, spirit is recognized as 
well as attainment and the highest honor goes to 
the girl who has shown the greatest consideration 
for others. Is there recognition of effort as well 
as accomplishment? What is the attitude of the 
camp toward religion ? Are the ideals and tradi- 
tions well-defined? This is difficult in a camp 
which changes its leaders frequently, as is some- 
times the case in camps owned by corporations of 
business men. 

While these things concerning leadership are 
of first importance, there are other considerations 
in choosing a camp. One of these is the per- 
sonnel of girls and councilors. Since comrade- 
ship of girls with girls is one of the finest prod- 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES 3 1 1 

ucts of the girls* camp, and the friendships 
formed are lasting friendships, the careful parent 
will want to know what sort of companions they 
are who are to share this life in intimate associa- 
tion with the girl at the most impressionable 
period. 

Another consideration is the type of camp best 
suited to the individual girl. For there are vari- 
ous types. There are the large and tKe small 
camps, there are camps for Jewish girls and for 
girls of the Roman Catholic faith. There are 
camps for Christian Scientists, there are camps 
for girls of college age and for little girls. There 
are some that specialize in music, some in dancing 
and some in physical training. But to the aver- 
age parent in these days the first question is the 
choice between the large and the small camp. 
This question as to their relative values is one 
that has been much discussed by parents and 
camp leaders. In the view of some prominent 
educators, the large camp — ^of a hundred or more 
— affords greater social development, through 
competitive games and sports; a wider acquaint- 
ance and a larger experience in democracy and 
community living. On the other hand, an in- 
creasing number of parents are attracted to the 



312 SUMMER IN THE GIRLS' CAMP 

simpler, more intimate life of the smaller camp. 
As one woman of experience observes, the desire 
of girls in their 'teens is for intimate association 
and their interest centers around the individual, 
and in her opinion — somewhat biased — the tend- 
ency of the larger camp is toward complexity 
and superficiality, of the smaller toward sim- 
plicity and intensity. 

There are further considerations as to site, 
proper drainage, sanitation and equipment, 
which should be looked into carefully in choosing 
a camp. Most important are the health condi- 
tions, dependent on an intelligent application of 
the principles of modern sanitation. It matters 
little whether a camp has a twenty mile view, if 
it be careless about its water supply or the dis- 
posal of waste. The choice between shacks and 
tents is of little importance except as a matter of 
personal preference, though tents have been 
found to be most popular — ^the army tent, allow- 
ing all sides to be open and with a raised plat- 
form — with bungalows a close second. 

Proper management is also essential to a good 
camp — ^organization, business method, efficiency 
in councilors and department heads, though it is 
unfortunate that these things should be placed 



EDUCATIONAL VALUES ;513 

first in judging a camp, as did one mother, whose 
daughter was completely made over in body, 
mind and spirit through her summer at camp, 
who overlooked all this to complain about towels 
lost in the laundry. 

With the growth of the girls' camp movement, 
a National Association of Directors of Girls' 
Camps has been formed with the purpose of 
bringing the work of all camps to a greater 
standard of efficiency. A notable beginning has 
been made in standardizing the camp activities 
by a normal course for swimming councilors con- 
ducted by the National Association under the 
direction of a representative of the Physical Edu- 
cation Department of one of the leading colleges. 
This course embraces the fundamental strokes in 
swimming, form swimming, diving, ornamental 
swimming and life saving. This association, 
whose membership comprises the leaders of many 
of the best camps of east and west, many of whom 
are themselves educators, has an opportunity to 
make a most valuable contribution to the cause 
of education and to many other phases of our 
American life. 



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HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 

^ 1984 

N. MANCHESTER. 



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